Amber looked up at the bright blue sky as she stepped out of the Portal and into the Mojave. She was back.
"Here," Jack passed a cheap flip-style phone to her. "One of the prepaid burners we use to keep in touch when we're on supply runs," he explained, "it has hundreds of minutes we'll never use, so knock yourself out."
He moved over to a four-door truck with some sort of contractors camper on the back. He started the truck, presumably turning on the A/C before starting to fiddle around in the back of it, presumably giving her privacy to make her call.
Her hands shook slightly as she tapped in her parents' number, and she held the phone to her ear. It rang three times, and then she heard her mother's voice. "Hello?"
"Hey Mom," Amber spoke into the cell, her voice cracking slightly.
"Amber? Is that you?" Her mother's voice trembled with disbelief.
"It's me, Mom," Amber reassured her.
"Oh sweetie," her mother gasped, "I thought we'd never hear your voice again! Where have you been? The police were looking for you."
"It's a long story, and I figured they would be," Amber replied, "I'd like to see you and Dad, but I don't have any way to get to you, is there any chance you could come to me?"
"Of course, where are you?"
Amber looked around. They were truly in the middle of the desert. There were a couple of busses, a huge tow-behind grill, and a few other vehicles, but no clues as to where she really was.
She hurried over to Jack and whispered, "Where are we?"
"Off Cedar Wash Rd," Jack replied, "if you're trying to get them out here, have them get off on Kelbaker Rd off I40 and head north, we can meet them in Kelso."
"I'm in the Mojave, Mom," Amber said, "if you take I40 and get off at Kelbaker Rd, I can meet you in Kelso."
"The Mojave?" Her mom sounded startled, "Well, that'll take us two days. Will you be there that long?"
"I can be," Amber replied.
"Oh, your father is going to be so happy to know you're alright; we were both so worried," her mother burbled happily. "I'll go get him out of the garage, and we'll get packed and going. Can we call you at this number?"
"Sure, Mom, if I don't pick up, just leave a message," Amber looked at Jack, who nodded.
"Alright, baby, we'll see you soon. We love you."
"I love you too, Mom," Amber replied before ending the call.
"That was quick," Jack noted as he opened the passenger door of the truck for her and the rear passenger door for Carrie.
Amber let out a weak laugh. "Nothing I have to say should really be relayed over the phone," she sighed, "this has to be a face-to-face conversation."
"I can see that," Jack agreed, "even with Bob showing off the magic, it was a hard pill to swallow."
Amber nodded. "So, what are the chances we can stop by someplace with a gardening center?" She asked.
Jack grinned over at her as he put the truck in drive and started heading down the dirt road. "Looking to expand your greenhouse?"
"I need spices," Amber grumbled.
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Edward looked up at the glacier, his mind racing to reconcile the evidence in front of him with his previous understanding of reality. He'd been surprised to discover that after arriving on this new world, he had a status sheet.
Watching the former marines bayonet twisted animals had been a bit disturbing, but it was when Sergeant Hanson had arranged a demonstration of the difference between someone who was level one and someone who was level thirteen that he'd seen the truth. Things were going to change rapidly and radically. He'd seen a young woman who was level seven grow an entire greenhouse worth of food in under two minutes. It took longer for people to harvest the fruits and vegetables than it did for her to grow them.
The skill needed to grow food and conjure materials required the Mana Crystals he'd seen the former marines killing monsters to obtain. He could easily envision a post-scarcity society, although the necessity for widespread distributed violence was a concern. Edward was well aware of the effects of the acclimatization of violence. The idea of every citizen regularly engaging in wholesale slaughter was deeply concerning. The general abhorrence of violence over the past half a century had been the driving factor behind a law-abiding populace.
He could see the shape of what was coming. With these new abilities, the government would find itself governing a self-sufficient, equally armed population, a situation that hadn't been seen on Earth since the seventeen hundreds. Might would very much make right, and it was imperative that the government represented the most might. Getting every service member over and working was going to be a priority, but no less would be ensuring that senior officers and officials stayed ahead of the curve.
Edward was not looking forward to bayoneting those weird-looking Doarells. As the Secretary of Defense, he would need to stay ahead, though. He'd looked over the plans created by Whitman, detailing forty of these 'Dungeons,' each topped by a massive skyscraper that would house the forces that would be taking shifts killing the monsters. Placing civilians in stasis, where they would consume almost no resources, and stacking them up neatly to await the end of the apocalypse was a novel idea. However, he remained skeptical of the upcoming end of the world.
Hanson coughed politely, drawing his attention.
"The time you allocated is nearly done, Sir," the Sergeant said.
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Edward nodded, eyeing the young man who was opening the Portal back to his office. Having to rely on not only civilians but civilians who weren't Americans, or even from Earth, rankled.
Hanson had explained that his people wouldn't be able to open portals back to Earth yet. Whitman would need to continue constructing the Dungeon, and based on his current progress, it might be a month before he completed it. He already had a few ideas about tasking 7th Engineers to learn how to build those structures, as waiting a month for a new one to be constructed wasn't feasible. Each of these facilities would be able to accommodate three thousand concurrent workers or nine thousand with all three shifts. Given that there were about one point three million active-duty servicemen and another million in the reserves and national guard, they couldn't wait for one man to do all the work. The forty Dungeons the man had laid out wouldn't even handle half the active personnel. That being said, the number of resources each Dungeon would provide was mind-boggling, although he hadn't seen or reviewed any actual figures regarding how many Mana Crystals would be required to support each person actively working.
The Portal opened, and he stepped through it, already mentally drafting his orders.
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"So you'll end up casting a ton of these little rituals just to create the empty space for the floor to occupy, while at the same time converting the displaced earth into stone," Bob explained.
Jason nodded thoughtfully, "How many of these rituals will you need to cast to complete the floor?"
"About two hundred and eighty," Bob replied.
"Fuck, at a hundred seconds a pop that's like, what eight hours?" Jason asked.
"Pretty much," Bob agreed, "and that's just to clear the space," he warned, "then I have to perform the ritual to ensure atmosphere and climate, tied together with aligning and directing the mana flows."
"Also, this Dungeon I'm building is straightforward. Other Dungeons are more elaborate, resembling natural environments," Bob frowned. "I'm not sure if it's just artistic license, a desire to be creative, or an attempt to mimic situations that you might find yourself in during a wave or tide, but the Dungeon in Holmstead has swamps, forests, plains, deserts, even natural caves."
"I think that would certainly be more fun to build," Jason offered hesitantly.
"It would," Bob admitted, "but I need to drive these Dungeons as deeply as I can, as quickly as I can."
"I'm going to end up building basic Dungeons like this, aren't I?" Jason sighed.
"Initially, but once the System integrates Earth, you'll be free to do whatever you'd like, and as you'll be a fully leveled curator, you can build whatever sort of Dungeon you'd like," Bob replied.
"I think I'd like to build more natural environments," Jason muttered, "build it out like a classic Dungeons and Dragons adventure. Start with saving the town from enraged beasts, then move onto other levels with things like goblins, then hobgoblins, then their terrible shaman overseer."
Bob finished another ritual, and the space expanded again. "You can use sapient monsters," Bob said slowly, "although I'm not entirely convinced it's the greatest of ideas. I know I'm not comfortable killing beings that can reason, even if they are just mana constructs driven to kill me for my mana."
"Could you design the mana flows so that monsters didn't respawn until the floor was reset somehow?" Jason asked, choosing not to address the moral implications Bob had raised.
'Is that possible?' Bob mentally projected to Trebor.
'Yes, although it isn't advisable,' Trebor replied. 'You could design a bypass that would redirect the mana flows down to the next floor, and simply use that as a reset for the floor, however,' he cautioned, 'if you did this for three consecutive floors, the fourth would effectively be nearing a wave-like condition. If you continued on in this fashion, say for twenty-five floors out of a twenty-six floor Dungeon, the final floor would effectively be nearly tidal, with monsters being spawned at a higher level or even a higher tier than you would normally see.'
'Finally, if you didn't keep that bottom floor clear, those high-level monsters would start spawning at the entrance of the Dungeon as the mana back flowed,' Trebor finished.
Bob winced. That actually sounded like the ideal environment for the Endless Swarm.
'It would be,' Trebor responded to his thoughts, 'although it would be much more challenging than what they're accustomed to.'
"You could do that," Bob began, "you'd just need a bypass that directed the mana flows down to the next floor, which you could switch over when you needed to repopulate it. The problem being, that if you built enough floors, that final floor where all the mana is being redirected to would become a death trap, with higher-level monsters constantly spawning. You'd need powerful pathers, like Elemental Conjurers or Endless Swarmers to keep it cleared, and you'd need a rotation of them doing so continuously."
"From what you've said about the Endless Guild, it shouldn't be an issue, all the monsters they can slaughter sounds right up their alley," Jason mused.
Bob sighed. "You aren't wrong," he admitted, "just give it all some careful thought over the next year or so."
"Oh, I will," Jason replied happily, "I have so many Dungeons to design."
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Mike watched his dire wolf tear apart the monster. It had three snake-like necks with serpent heads, and the body of a hyena, along with the tail of a scorpion. He idly wondered if the fucked up shit in the Dungeons just sort of formed, like putting animals in a blender, or if Bob had something to do with it.
It had been a trying day. SecDef had less skepticism than he'd feared, accepting the new reality reasonably quickly. Mike wasn't sure that the man had been sold on the upcoming apocalypse, but he'd clearly seen the advantages that magic would bring to Earth. Now Mike needed to get Bob to head back to Earth for a meet and greet while at the same time preparing the way for the 5th to arrive.
SecDef had wanted to be present during the upcoming wave, and Mike had a feeling he wasn't going to take no for an answer. The bulldozers were making quick work of erecting ramparts, and he had a couple of companies sandbagging it. He'd noticed the razor wire appearing, but he hadn't asked any questions about where it came from. Marines knew how to fortify an emplacement.
Delving eight hours a day was a bit tedious, but the results were undeniable. He hadn't felt this good since he'd enlisted, his beer belly was gone, and when he'd shaved that morning, the gray in his hair was gone.
He was the picture of health, in no small part due to his Endurance attribute, which was now thirty. If Bob was to be believed, and being as he couldn't lie without the world feeling like it was recoiling from him, as well as everything he'd said being accurate, Mike was going to live for a hundred and seventy-five years.
Sure, killing monsters kind of sucked, but it wasn't the worst job he'd ever had to do, and once everything was over and he was able to start keeping the crystals he was gathering, he could see just how idyllic life could be.
Of course, that would be after the apocalypse. The first tower was due to be completed tomorrow morning, and he was looking forward to seeing how it turned out. SecDef's plan to have the Engineers become Curators was a good one. They needed more Dungeons, and they needed them fast. This little valley was nice, but they needed ten more just like it to handle the United States' needs, let alone the rest of the world. SecDef hadn't mentioned anything about the other Nations of Earth, but Mike could see the gears turning in the man's mind. Hell, Mike didn't necessarily disagree. The U.S. needed to take advantage of the head start they'd been given. It was a tremendous opportunity. Diplomacy being the slow and cautious process that it was, Mike thought it much more likely that the other nations would discover the impending catastrophe and the advantages to be had from System Integration from the Dungeons and Dragons group.
He'd done his part by reporting the names of everyone civilian to have come over to Thayland thus far. They'd be monitored and probably placed on a no-fly list, would which would help to keep the information close, but someone would have inevitably traveled outside the U.S., and once they had the portal spell, it was only a matter of time before operational security was completely blown.
That was a concern for people higher up the chain of command, though. He had enough to worry about.