Bob watched the gaming group tear through the monsters on the second floor, which looked like the unholy love child of a millipede and a mouse. It had hundreds of mouse legs that carried a body that alternated segments between chitin, and fur, a whip-like tail that ended in a scythe-like claw, and the head of a mouse, if the mouse in question had six faceted eyes and mandibles in addition to its teeth. They were also the size of the average garden tractor.
Jack had named them 'mousipedes,' drawing groans from the group.
The group was doing well, despite initially suffering a few wounds when a summoned monster died. Level one summoned monsters didn't fare especially well against level two Dungeon monsters. But time had passed, and once everyone in the group had killed their one-thousandth monster, their summons had increased to level two, and the fights had evened out, and the killing speed increased.
Seven hours into their scheduled delve had the entire group's summons at level three, eyeballing level four. He was planning to move them down to the third floor tomorrow, where they could not only start farming crystals but they could also double the experience they were gaining, allowing them to really advance their summon mana-infused creature spell level.
He could already see the problem. He needed someone to hang around, and shepherd/heal the groups while he drove the Dungeon lower. The gaming group would be knocking on the sixth floor inside of a week, two at most, thanks to having eight-hour delves every day. He didn't doubt that the marines would be even faster, not having to grind out a skill with a ten-level boost.
What he really needed to do, was to somehow clone himself.
What Bob had really noticed was that while they weren't marines, the couples worked together really well. Amanda and Dave were like a well-oiled machine, as were Tony and Lakisha, each directing their summons in conjunction with the other, increasing their kill rate and minimizing the damage done to their summons.
Jack, Vera, and Sarah, on the other hand, were a bit of a mess. The raw power of their summons was doing a lot of the work for them, but initially, they'd all needed the occasional heal.
The standout from the singles group was Talima. He'd been surprised when she'd asked if she could join the group. Apparently, she was going stir crazy and was excited to use her newly restored body for more than cooking and watching the twins.
Bob had wondered at the wisdom of leaving infants in the hands of a bunch of marines, but as it turned out, the lean, mean, killing machines were absolute teddy bears when it came to kids. Except for Mike, who didn't seem to share that trait with his men.
Talima was running a little bit behind the others in terms of the speed at which she was killing monsters. She seemed to be content to handle a single pool, making sure she never strayed into the range of another. She displayed a remarkable awareness of her summons health, and he hadn't had to step in once.
Bob looked at his phone and sighed. Another twenty minutes, and he'd call them back and call it a day. He needed to see if he could get Huron to assign a couple of the clergy to watch over the groups from the entrance.
----------------------------------------
"Dear, you look worn down. Did you get any sleep?" Helen asked Bob as she nudged a plate containing what looked not entirely unlike a breakfast burrito towards him.
"Not as much as I'd like," Bob replied as he pulled both Monroe and a bowl full of diced fish out of his inventory. He'd discovered that he could retrieve items from his inventory regardless of where they were. Even if they were in a locked stasis box. A lesson he wished he'd learned earlier, recalling the mystery of the missing ham from his ham sandwiches.
"Oh, my," Helen breathed as she took in the sheer majesty of a full-size Monroe. "Aren't you a handsome boy," she cooed as she reached out to rub Monroe's ruff.
"He's the most handsome kitty in the world," Bob agreed, adding a hand to the ongoing kitty worship, an action that appeared to please his feline overlord, as he began to purr, indicating that he did indeed know that he was the most handsome kitty in the world.
"I don't know about all that," Roger muttered as he walked up and put an arm around his wife, giving her a gentle squeeze, "but I'll agree that he's a big one."
"He got bigger as he leveled up," Bob offered, enjoying his breakfast burrito, which allowed him to eat one-handed, freeing his other hand for more important activities.
"Yeah, the whole dungeons and dragons thing," Roger nodded, "the kids told us about it."
"This big beautiful boy," Bob nodded towards Monroe, who was still working through his bowl of fish, "is level sixteen, which is as high as he can go unless I tier him up."
"Tier him up?" Helen asked.
"Yeah," Bob replied, pausing to take another bite. "Humans are tier five, with a level cap of twenty-five, cats are tier four, so they have a level cap of sixteen."
"Can you give us an example of what tier six is then?" Helen asked.
"Sure," Bob said as he popped the last of the burrito in his mouth, standing up and stepping back from the counter. He concentrated for a moment and turned off his Return to the Beginning blessing, resuming his tier six form.
"Holy shit!" Roger exclaimed, drawing a swat to his shoulder from his wife. "Language!" she scolded him before looking Bob over.
"That's a little odd, dear," she said slowly. "You're still a very handsome young man, but you're so much bigger."
"Bigger?" Roger scoffed, "he's huge, a giant even."
"Yeah," Bob said with a sigh as he reactivated Return to the Beginning, resuming his human form. "One of the paths you can take when you tier up is to just improve on what you already are; it's called becoming a paragon."
"Well, I'd say that's an accurate name then," Helen mused as she decided to test the waters of toe-bean adoration.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
"I'm guessing there are other paths then?" Roger asked shrewdly.
"Draconians, which look like dragon people, a bunch of elemental affinity races, I've seen people with flames in the eye sockets, skin like stone, hair like water," Bob shook his head, "I think there's sort of an infinite variety."
"And our world is going to become like this one?" Roger grimaced.
Bob shrugged uncomfortably.
He was saved from explaining as Mike strode into the tavern.
"Bob," Mike nodded to him, "I don't suppose you know anyone who rides what looks, to the untrained eye, like a T-Rex?"
"I ask," Mike continued, "because there is a guy out there riding a T-Rex."
"I do," Bob replied, hefting Monroe onto his shoulders, "that'll be Eddi; he's a good kid."
Bob headed for the door with Mike, Helen, and Roger in tow. Stepping outside, he was greeted by the sight of Rexxy, complete with some sort of saddle, being ridden by Eddi as they raced down the valley.
"Yeah, that's Eddi," Bob said to one in particular.
"Is that going to be our new normal?" Roger whispered to Helen.
"Bob said he was a nice boy," Helen replied absently before turning to Mike. "Would you boys like some breakfast?"
"While we don't want to impose, we wouldn't say no to it, Ma'am," Mike replied, accompanied by en masse nodding from the rest of the marines, who were stretching to cool down from their morning run.
"Well then, I'd best get started," Helen beamed before pulling Roger back into the tavern. "Come along, dear, you can dice up some more of those tomatoes for me."
Bob shook his head as the couple retreated into the tavern. Helen was either adapting very well to her changed circumstances, or something was very wrong with her.
Eddi pulled Rexxy to a halt as he arrived in front of the tavern, casually dismissing his summons and falling to the ground in a crouch, the motion speaking of long practice.
"Bob!" Eddi greeted him enthusiastically.
"Good morning Eddi," Bob smiled at his young friend, "what brings you all the way out to Glacier Valley this morning?"
"I've got great news!" Eddi exclaimed, taking a step forward, then wincing. "Can we go inside so I can sit down? Rexxy's great, but I'm not used to riding for that long."
"You rode here?" Bob asked in surprise.
"Yeah, I've never been, but Bailli described the route," Eddi replied happily as he limped into the tavern. "You might not know this, but tyrannosaurs are fast."
Eddi paused to pull a small branch out from under a strap on his armor. "Don't corner very well, though," he muttered.
Bob gestured for Eddi to take a seat and paused, surprised that Mike had followed them in and was taking a seat as well.
He shrugged and sat down, sliding Monroe off the Makres and pouring the purrball into the middle of the table.
"So I heard you built your tower," Bob grinned as Eddi's smile reached radiation warning levels of brightness.
"We did," Eddi gushed, "and it's awesome; you have to come to visit sometime soon."
Bob grimaced, "I'd love to," he began, "but there aren't enough hours in the day as it is. I need to go ask Huron if he can ask a couple of the clergy to stand watch over my freshers while I drive the Dungeon down a few more levels."
"Well, we had a meeting, and we were thinking we could help you with that," Eddi grinned, "We've got almost thirty of us at level twenty-five, and honestly, there isn't enough room in the Dungeon for all of us," he explained, "and being as we all have the Portal spell, we thought we'd offer to help you bring your people over."
"Oh, also," Eddi continued before Bob could open his mouth, "The Endless unanimously decided to donate all of our profits towards saving your people," Eddi shrugged out of his backpack and pushed it onto the table, carefully avoiding disturbing Monroe, who was dedicating this time to making sure his fur was spotless and clean.
"Two hundred and fifty thousand mana crystals," Eddi said proudly, "and another thousand Summoning Affinity Crystals."
Bob rubbed his eyes, unsure as to when they'd become so moist. "Thank you," Bob's voice cracked, "this will save a lot of lives."
"You're just giving Bob two hundred and fifty thousand mana crystals?" Mike asked softly, looking Eddi over more carefully.
"It's the right thing to do," Eddi replied staunchly, "besides, the Endless wouldn't even exist without Bob. If we can help save lives and help Bob at the same time, that's a win-win."
Mike looked at Bob. "Don't suppose you can spare two hundred thousand of those to regrow some limbs?" Mike asked hopefully.
Bob shook his head, "I'll need about nine hundred thousand to drop the Dungeon all the way down to the twenty-sixth floor, which is the optimum level." He sighed, "Of course, I'll need people farming twenty-four hours a day to gather crystals on every level of the Dungeon."
"I believe that I'll be able to fit about twenty-five hundred people in a Dungeon at once, so working eight-hour shifts, that means I'll need seventy-five hundred people, trending towards higher levels; I'm building it to support fifty people on each floor through the first threshold, then it'll gradually increase by twenty-five until the last five floors, which should be able to support one hundred and fifty people delving at once," Bob explained.
"It's six floors deep right now, isn't it, dear?" Helen asked, surprising Bob as she delivered a large breakfast burrito to both Mike and Eddi before thoughtfully placing her hands on her hips. "So you need nine hundred and seventy-five people available to go down there."
She patted his shoulder kindly, "You have to make use of the resources you have before you worry about the resources you don't have yet," she assured him before looking over at Mike. "You going to bring over our other boys who didn't come home whole, aren't you?" She asked.
"Yes, Ma'am," Mike replied firmly.
"Well, there you go then," Helen smiled at the table, "you get yourself a whole passel of marines, and our boys get made whole, then they start doing what they do best," she nodded warmly towards Mike, "protecting us."
She headed back to the kitchen, leaving the table to their thoughts.
"She seemed nice," Eddi ventured as he took an experimental bite of his burrito. His eyes widened, and he looked at the tortilla-wrapped breakfast with could only be described as avarice before ripping into it with gusto.
"She's also right," Mike said, looking Bob directly in the eyes.
"I know she is," Bob grumbled, "and believe me, I'd love nothing better than to heal up every single veteran in the country, but..." He trailed off.
"I'm sorry," Bob said. "I shouldn't look at the marines as an expenditure, but rather as an investment. I know they'll more than pay for themselves, and they'll be a lot easier to bring over than poaching D&D groups."
Mike smiled. "We put out a call to our brothers before we left," he said, "through the support groups mostly. If I can borrow Eddi or one of his friends, we can start pulling them in tonight."
Eddi swallowed his last bite of burrito, casting a covetous glance at the quarter remaining on Mike's plate before responding. "Bob will have to take us there, can't Portal to someplace you've never been," Eddi explained, "but I can do it tonight, and I can have a couple Endless out here tomorrow as well."
"If I do nothing but cast regenerate, it'll take me close to twenty-eight hours to get them all," Bob muttered.
He closed his eyes for a second, working through the math.
"Ok," Bob said, opening his eyes again, looking at Mike. "Here's the deal; you're going to have to have your people bashing monsters with sticks for a few levels," he shook his head, "I can't afford to summon ammunition ritually, the conversion loss between the cost of the ritual versus the mana crystals you harvest isn't worth it. Once you reach level six, you'll have the ability to summon ammunition with an effect over time, and at level seven, you'll be able to persistent effect it. If you use a Summoning Affinity Crystal, you'll be able to level up the skill high enough that you'll have the spell casting score to summon out the materials, but I'm not going to lie; you might have to fight with summoned sticks for a while to get that leveled up to where it needs to be."
Bob paused for breath, "I'm pretty sure it'll work, but I need your team to try it first before we invest Summoning Affinity Crystals in a plan we aren't exactly sure will work."
Mike grinned at him, "The Corps still teaches fighting with bayonets."