Bob walked into Thidwell's office the next morning with an ache in his back.
He'd decided to use a persistent effect to summon himself a bed that he would be able to sleep in, without part of himself hanging off.
He'd learned a valuable lesson. Never having had much choice in the past, Bob now knew that he preferred a firm mattress to a plush one.
Thidwell rose from his chair and greeted Bob by clasping his shoulder, a gesture that, for the first time, Bob didn't find incredibly intimidating.
Now it was just an average level of intimidating.
"Good morning," Thidwell boomed, his face stretching into the same sort of smile that one might see on a well-fed lion as it surveys a herd of antelope.
"Morning," Bob nodded as Thidwell released his shoulder and leaned against his desk.
"What do you need?" Thidwell asked bluntly.
Bob took a breath, released it, took another, and then replied, "I need help."
Thidwell cocked his head to the side and motioned for Bob to continue.
"You know that I came from a world without mana," Bob began, "a place where everyone is level zero."
Thidwell nodded impatiently.
"In seven hundred and three days, the mana in my universe is going to become active, and the mother of all tides is going to sweep over my world," Bob said.
"And as your people are level zero, they'll be wiped out, root and stem," Thidwell rumbled thoughtfully.
"Kelli told me that your world has more people in one city than the entirety of Greenwold," Thidwell said, "so I have to ask, just how many people are in your world, and what do you want me to do?"
"Over seven billion," Bob replied, "and I know," he waved a hand in frustration, "I know I can't save them all, but I want to try and save as many as I can."
Thidwell snorted, "Hire a few dimensionalists and chronomancers, put your people in stasis, and stack them up like cordwood in spatially expanded crates," the big man shrugged, "you'll run out of mana crystals before you run out of time, or people."
Bob blinked.
He had a stasis box in his house. He kept food in it.
He'd never thought about putting a person in one.
"I was thinking," he began, slowly, "about bringing a number of people here, to Thayland, in order to level them up so they could help, but with all the new people coming to Holmstead, the Dungeon is full, all the time, at least on the levels I'd need to use."
Thidwell nodded and remained silent.
"So instead, I decided that I'd build a shallow but broad Dungeon, far from Holmstead," he hastened to add, "with a focus on having large floors, rather than driving the Dungeon down very deeply."
Thidwell raised his hand and closed his eyes for a moment before he began speaking.
"You'd need a fairly large, mostly level area," Thidwell rumbled, his eyes still closed, "and it would need to be a valley, not a plateau, in order to have enough mana pooling to fuel the Dungeon."
"You might be best served to have a dozen separate Dungeons for each floor," he mused, "arrange them in a grid, but keep them separate in case something goes wrong so that you can handle the problem section."
"Link the mana flows together as they descend to the second, making sure they are spread evenly, so that if one of the first-floor sections gets too much mana, you don't get a cascade going down from floor to floor," Thidwell was lost in thought at this point, while Bob had pulled out a notebook and was frantically scribbling the curators advice down.
"If you utilize the Gate methodology, you could use a single gate to link to all the floors, allowing you to maintain the integrity of the Dungeon, or," Thidwell smiled as his eyes opened, "you could use separate gates for each floor, where each gate provided access to multiple Dungeons, but only that single floor."
"It would be an interesting exercise in Dungeon design, and it could be awfully useful as well," Thidwell boomed, clearly enthused about the idea, "Gods know that I could use a Dungeon with that capacity."
Thidwell stood up straight and moved behind his desk, where he began to pace.
"I've got a thousand people outside of Holmstead right now," he stated, "all looking to reincarnate with an affinity crystal and level up."
He shook his head, "and I have a Dungeon that can accommodate fifty people on the first five floors and a hundred on the next."
Growling, Thidwell continued to pace, "I built my Dungeon with the expectation that I'd have many people delving the deeper floors, as the crystal requirements to tier up are higher, and thus they need to spend more time there."
"But now I've got this crowd, and even if I had the Affinity Crystals for them to use, which I don't, there isn't enough space for them all to delve at once and mark my words, it is going to get worse," Thidwell rasped.
"Worse?" Bob asked after Thidwell had paced back and forth a few times without expounding.
"Much worse," Thidwell confirmed with a snarl, "Those folks out there didn't leave that much behind; but, they had the crystals to come here and the crystals to go back if the rumors weren't true."
"This is just the first wave. There are hundreds more, just like them in Crescent River and Crystal Falls, and they'll be moving soon as well," the huge man shook his head, "after them will come the people who have the crystals to get here, but not to get back. And then we'll start getting the groups that didn't have the crystals, that came here by way of hundreds of portal spells, days and weeks of traveling, bringing nothing with them but their hopes and dreams of a better life."
Thidwell stopped pacing and turned to face him. "All told, I expect that Harbordeep will lose a quarter of its population, which is four thousand people. Crescent River and Crystal Falls are half the size, but they'll mirror it, so that's another two thousand each, or another four thousand."
He waved a hand in a circle, "Then you have the other cities, Hillsbrad, Aspen, Sigil Rock, places where the Dungeons are shit, all dig and drop affairs," Thidwell shook his head again, "I figure we'll pull another twenty thousand from the other forty-seven cities of decent size."
"And while Eddi and his little friends are hard at work, not everyone wants to be a Summoner," Thidwell said with a grimace, "I've asked them to delve the twenty-eighth and thirtieth floors for Dimension and Conjuration crystals, but they're convinced they have the best path, so they keep focusing on the twenty-seventh."
Thidwell's grimace twisted into a smile that could only be described as nefarious, "Of course, I've also handed out those Summoning Affinity Crystals and obtained contracts to deliver fifty conjuration crystals instead," he snickered.
"But this," he rumbled, "this could work," he said as his smile grew wider.
Bob shuffled a bit. While Thidwell had never been anything but helpful to him, he'd often felt that Thidwell had gotten the better of him every time they had interacted.
"I'll make you a deal," Thidwell said suddenly, "I'll help you design and build your Dungeon, I'll even help provide the crystals to do so," he added, "and in return, once your crisis is over, one way or another, in seven hundred or so days, I'll start shipping people to your new Dungeon to delve it and level up."
Thidwell looked positively gleeful, which was not an expression that inspired confidence. It made Bob want to check the floor for a trap door that may or may not lead down to a tank full of sharks.
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His thoughts raced. On the one hand, Thidwell knew everything there was to know about building a Dungeon, as he'd built one, and a damned good one at that. It would be much faster to have him working alongside Bob to not only teach him the ins and outs but also to build as well.
On the other hand, Thidwell might be evil. And he was planning to flood Bob's new Dungeon with penniless refugees as soon as Earth was back to normal. Not that was even a bad thing.
That was the problem with dealing with Thidwell; everything he suggested doing was objectively good.
Bob sighed. At the end of the day, he'd be willing to make worse bargains to help save Earth.
"Alright," Bob agreed, "that'll work."
"Excellent," Thidwell murmured as he abruptly sat down behind his desk and pulled out an impossibly large pad of paper from a drawer that couldn't have held it.
"You'll need a lot of mana crystals to start," Thidwell warned him as he started sketching a series of interconnected lines, "figure probably a hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand to get started."
"Eddi and his friends are going to help me out with crystals," Bob said, "as is Bailli."
Thidwell looked up in surprise, and his expression twisted into a grin of approval.
"Well done, leveraging those relationships," Thidwell said proudly, "that first batch of summoners practically worship you."
Bob nodded uncomfortably. He wasn't ok with that, but he didn't know how to fix it. He did know that he was going to figure out an upgraded version of the Endless Swarm Path for when they reached tier six.
"I found a place," Bob offered hesitantly, "it's about two hundred miles North/Northwest, just in front of a glacier," Thidwell nodded and flipped his pad over to a clean sheet.
"It's a valley, like you said, about eight miles long and five miles wide," Bob said.
"Do you have cartography yet?" Thidwell asked bluntly.
"No?" Bob replied, "I still have a bunch of important skills to take that I somehow missed out on."
"Goddamnit, Kelli," Thidwell grumbled, "I knew I should have kept you with Harv and Elli," he shoved a pad of paper across the desk towards Bob and threw a charpin at him.
"Skills, now," he ordered, "list them out."
Bob cautiously took the paper and started listing out his skills while Thidwell grumbled, "You've got portal, but you don't have cartography."
Bob finished and handed the list over.
Level one - Summoning / Summon Monster
Level two - Summon Monroe
Level three - Dimension / Ritual magic
Level four - Effect over time
Level five - Persistent effect / Bonus Divine - shadowmancy / Bonus Arcane - Summon object
Level six - Portal / Bonus Divine - Drain mana/ Bonus Arcane - Disruption
Level seven - Barrage / Bonus Divine - Drain stamina / Bonus Arcane - Reinforcement
Level eight - Abjuration / Bonus Divine - Drain Health / Bonus Divine - Eldritch cube
Level nine - Elemental Fire / Bonus Divine - Mana sight / Bonus Arcane - Flight
Level ten - Elemental Air / Bonus Divine - Fire Aura / Bonus Arcane - Eldritch Sheild
Level eleven - Elemental Water / Bonus Divine - Control Air / Bonus Arcane - Reinforce Armor
Level Twelve - Elemental Earth / Bonus Divine - Control Water / Bonus Arcane - Ward
Level Thirteen - Plant / Bonus Divine - Control Fire / Bonus Arcane - Eldritch Wall of Force
Level Fourteen - Animal / Bonus Divine - Control Earth / Bonus Arance - Hermetic Seal
Level Fifteen - Conjuration / Bonus Divine - Plant Growth / Bonus Arcane - Force Seal
Level Sixteen - Eldritch Blast / Bonus Divine - Polymorph / Bonus Arcane - Enhance Weapon
Level seventeen - Summon Amber / Bonus Divine - Size Alteration / Bonus Arcane - Bands of Confinement
Level Eighteen - Spatial Enlargement / Bonus Divine - Root / Bonus Arcane - Eldritch Aura
Level Nineteen - Spatial Reinforcement / Bonus Divine - Create Fire / Bonus Arcane - Resist Fire
Level Twenty - Animancy - Bonus Divine / Anima Blast / Bonus Arcane - Resist Cold
Level Twenty-one - Area of Effect / Bonus Divine - Create Water / Bonus Arcane - Resist Lightning
Level Twenty-two - Spell Sculpting / Bonus Divine - Create Earth / Bonus Arcane - Resist Acid
Level Twenty-three - Matrix Manipulation / Bonus Divine - Create Air / Bonus Arcane - Resist Eldritch
Level Twenty-four - Transmutation / Bonus Divine - Mana Manipulation / Bonus Arcane - Weight Manipulation
Level Twenty-five - Melee / Bonus Divine - Regenerate / Bonus Arcane - Repair
Thidwell looked at this list and let out a long-suffering sigh. "How did you not have Melee until you took level twenty-five?" he asked.
"Never mind that," he waved a hand, "why don't you have an armor skill, or parry, or dodge?"
Bob shrugged, "I didn't know until it was too late," he replied.
"The problem is that you fit in a little too well," Thidwell grumbled, "and I had to reward Harv and Elli, so you learned from Kelli, who of course didn't think to tell you, and then Harv and Elli expected you to already know as well," he finished shaking his head.
"Your skills are a nightmare," he stated coldly.
"I know that you couldn't take a path, and then when you could take a path, it brought you back to down to five, and you then had to level back up, regaining your skills as you went, but stars and stones," he jabbed a finger at the list, "Reinforce Armor? You aren't a crafter. Enhance weapon? Again, not a crafter, and not a melee specialist either."
Thidwell stood up and came back around his desk, getting uncomfortably close to Bob as he held Bob's gaze.
"I understand that things have been frantic for you, and I am aware that you have taken on an immense burden, but your skills are a mess. You took your resistances out of Conjuration, instead of the Divine Schools, for which you have an Affinity Crystal used, and further a general increase to the school, which would make those spells more powerful," Thidwell said, his voice calm and reasonable.
"I know you can't do it now," he went on, "but at some point in the very near future, you need to sit down with me, and plan your skills out, so you can reincarnate."
Bob could only nod.
He knew his skills were a mess. When he'd been leveling back up, there were times when he was scrambling to find a bonus divine or bonus arcane skill to take because he hadn't had the schools he needed.
"Alright then," Thidwell nodded, "let's go see this valley you've picked out," he pulled a pouch from his satchel and handed it to Bob, who looked at it questioningly.
"When you cast as many rituals as I do," Thidwell grunted, "you tend to keep the crystals in lots of one hundred."
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Thidwell walked through Bob's portal and looked over the valley below.
It was quite a bit colder here, as it was not only a good hundred miles further north, but the edge of a glacier rose hundreds of feet above the mouth of the valley.
He suspected that even in the summer, this wouldn't be a terribly warm place.
Still, there were several ice-locked streams flowing down to a river that flowed, free of ice, through the valley as it twisted and turned, rushing towards the end of the valley.
He pulled out his drawing pad from his satchel and set to sketching, ignoring Bob, who had come out of the portal as well, and stood slightly behind him and to his left.
Thidwell ignored him as he sketched the details of the valley. Bob would wait, quietly, for him to finish. It was another one of the man's useful traits.
Finished his drawing, Thidwell looked at it appraisingly.
He turned to Bob and motioned him forward.
"As you can see, the river is a significant hindrance," Thidwell traced the river's sinuous path through the valley, "so we have to ask ourselves if we want to try and work around it or if we want to go through the effort of altering its course."
Bob looked at the map, then down at the valley, frowning pensively.
"Work around it," Bob said, "it'll cost more time and crystals to reroute it, whereas working around it is doable," he gestured to four spots on the map, all equidistant from each other, "If we build out four Dungeons at each of those locations, it should pull mana evenly from the surrounding area, right?"
Thidwell looked down at the indicated spaces, envisioning where the Dungeons would be built.
"In theory, that would work," Thidwell said slowly, "but in practice, I think you'd be better served with a grid formation, each of the Dungeons spaced perfectly to ensure they aren't trying to pull mana from an area already be drained.
He made a series of marks along the valley, "You'll want to space them out, with each one having a square mile to pull mana from," he said as he eyed the map, noting that two of the dots were in the river and one of them in a stream.
"We'll have to do a little bit of work to shuffle the river over a couple of times, and that stream once, but let's be honest, you don't have the crystals to build all of these yet," he gestured to the map, and then sketched light lines delineating the area each Dungeon would be pulling from.
Five lines of eight dots divided neatly.
"It'll be damned ambitious, and when it comes to maintenance," Thidwell shook his head, "You'll need a curator for each one, once you've driven them down ten floors anyways."
"Still," Thidwell grinned viciously, "you'll have the largest fresher training Dungeon ever seen, and you're well outside the Kingdom as well, so no taxes."
Bob nodded, paused, then asked, "When can we get started?"
"This afternoon," Thidwell replied with a shrug. He was finished with the thirty-fourth floor, and much as it pained him, he could wait. He didn't want to give that bastard Wallenstair any crystals, but this was the worthier project.
"You don't have invocation yet," Thidwell noted as he reviewed Bob's jumbled and disordered list of skills, "so you won't be able to enchant the gates, which you really need to be able to do."
He considered the issue a moment before speaking again, "Alright, let's do this; you focus on leveling up, quickly," he admonished, "and once you have Invocation and the Gateway skill, we'll get started. While you're leveling, I'll start gathering crystals for the project."
Thidwell knew it would also give Eddi and his summoners, as well as Bailli, time to build up a reserve of crystals for Bob as well.
The first floor of each Dungeon, sized for fifty people, would require twenty to thirty thousand crystals. And even with having to redesign and rebuild the mana flows until you had it right, crystals wouldn't be coming in as fast as they would be using them.
Bob nodded slowly.
"Let's call it two weeks," he said, hiding a smile as he watched Bob's eye twitch.