Monroe

Chapter One Hundred and Ninety. Adventures and Introspection.

Jessica looked over the edge of the sinkhole. As promised, it was almost twenty meters down into a forested glen. The best place to drop down was right next to the waterfall. With a mental push, she summoned out a persistent effect bundle of rope. It wasn't as strong as what she could summon with concentration or even an effect over time, but she didn't want to worry about keeping the spell going, and thanks to having ground her summon monster spell all the way up, her Summoning School made quite a difference.

"I'll tie it off for you," Danny offered, grabbing one end of the rope and moving back through the trees a bit.

In just a few more levels, they'd be able to fly, or portal down there, Jessica mused. This whole world was beyond belief. And it was coming to Earth.

"Got it," Danny came back a few moments later, "Give it a yank, yeah?"

Jessica tugged, and the rope snapped tight. She leaned back, pulling hard, but it didn't slip. "Right, I'll drop down first and bring out Brutus, Danny, you'll follow, then Bruce, Blue, Shiela, and Jake, you'll bring up the rear, yeah?"

Seeing nods all around, Jessica dropped the rope down into the sinkhole, where it landed on the shore of the small pond formed by the waterfall. With a deep breath, she slowly began to lower herself down.

She marveled at the new strength in her arms. Climbing the rope had always been difficult for her, so she'd stuck with it at the gym, figuring that if it was hard, it was helping her build and tone muscle. Eight levels had vastly increased her strength, and she lowered herself down the rope easily. Reaching the bottom, she immediately summoned out Brutus. The huge smilodon yawned as he appeared, his dagger-like fangs showing proudly and his tail idly swishing. Moving with her thoughts, the saber-toothed tiger padded forward a few feet before a furry brown shape dove out of the trees towards Brutus' back.

The big cat rolled to the side, receiving a deep furrow along his side as he avoided the blow. Lunging to his feet, Brutus squared off against his opponent. The Owlacoon, as Jessica decided to call it, was four feet long and three feet high, with an impressive wingspan that it used to make itself appear larger as it hissed and beat its wings.

Brutus was having none of that. The huge cat lunged forward, accepting a gash to the chest as he sank his massive fangs into the neck of the monster. He was buffeted by the huge wings that beat frantically against him and took two more gashes to his chest before he jerked his head left, then right, and the monster went limp.

Jessica called him back with a thought, looking around surrounding trees carefully. Brutus was level twenty-two, and he could take a lot more damage than she could. The smilodon moved along the edge of the trees, but no more attacks were coming.

"Come on down, just get your summons out as soon as you land," Jessica called up to the group.

One by one, the group dropped down. A badger, a dingo, a komodo dragon, and a wolf joined Brutus, making the pond's shore rather crowded.

The blue-green pine trees stood only seven or eight meters tall, leaving quite a bit of room between their tips and the top of the sinkhole. Glancing around, she considered that this would be an idyllic place, perfect for a picnic or even to camp in overnight, were it not for the monsters.

"Let's send our summons in ahead of us and make sure to check the branches - the Owlacoon pulled a drop bear on Brutus," she warned.

The summoned monsters moved into the copse of trees, their summoners following, shivering slightly in the cool, damp air as they left the light behind.

Bob was carefully studying the diagram in the high school biology textbook he'd loaded on his laptop. He'd never been particularly interested in Botany, but as it turned out, summoning a plant without the use of the System required the same detailed understanding that summoning his UtahRaptor had.

Trebor had explained that the Arcane Depths represented an actual ecosystem, as understood by the creators of the ritual, which meant real plants and animals were intended to be present alongside the monsters. So, he needed to practice summoning plants.

He'd asked why all of that couldn't be accomplished just been with summoning, and the answer had been that due to all of the plant and animal life that was needed to create an ecosystem, the creators of the ritual had preferred to rely on divine magic, which provided perfect specimens, as opposed to relying on the knowledge of the ritual caster, who may or may not know exactly how a vole was put together.

As he studied the cottonwood on the screen, he had to agree.

After completing the eighteenth floor, he'd decided that he really was working too hard and had restricted himself to ten hours a day. That left a few hours a day for practicing his system-less magic. Or studying for practicing his system-less magic.

Monroe shifted in his lap, adjusting himself ever so slightly.

Bob had excavated most of the nineteenth floor today, so he'd decided that he'd relax down here. He'd even spent an hour killing monsters in his Arcane Depths. He had the beginnings of an idea.

Affinity Crystals were going to become random, which meant that while you'd be able to find any crystal you wanted if you just killed enough monsters. It also meant that The Endless wouldn't be able to stockpile them. Not they'd been able to do so recently, as had kept feeding them to the Marines.

That was another issue. The Endless were tapped out of Summoning Affinity Crystals, which meant the nine thousand Marines who had come over were grinding up without them. It hadn't escaped his notice that they were the ones being injured. He suspected the issue wasn't just the lack of armor but also the reduced damage they were dealing due to not having the Summoning Affinity.

He shook his head and dropped his hands down to pet Monroe, who responded by slightly increasing the volume and frequency of his purrs.

Having a stockpile of the right kind of Affinity Crystals was going to be important, as Trebor had confirmed they wouldn't change or be removed during the update.

This meant that for the next twenty months, Bob would be able to seed his Arcane Depths with the Affinity Crystals he would need.

He still had all four of the Elemental Affinity Crystals, as well as the Summoning, Dimension, Abjuration, and Summoning ones. He was lacking the Plant and Animal crystals, but he could gather those fairly easily.

It was easy to decide that Summoning should be seeded. He owed Eddi, and from what he'd heard, the Endless had been directly responsible for the wave passing without a single life lost, anywhere in Greenwold. So that would go on level thirty-nine of his Arcane Depths. While the Conjuration specialists were heavy hitters, so was anyone with an Affinity Crystal, so that was in the maybe category. Abjuration and Dimension also filled very particular niches. The four Elemental Affinity Crystals were needed to boost Curators, who traditionally suffered due to the necessary breadth of their skills.

Trebor had also assured him that there would be a Curator path available for each Tier. It would, in fact, be the only path available from the System. He'd even showed Bob what it would look like.

Path of the Curator This path requires that the user possess the following skills; Divine School of Elemental Earth, Divine School of Elemental Air, Divine School of Elemental Water, Divine School of Elemental Fire, Ritual Magic. Upon choosing the Path of the Curator at the user's first Threshold, the user unlocks the first threshold bonus of each of the required schools of magic without needing to allocate a skill point. For each level after the first Threshold, the user may unlock a threshold for any skill within the required schools of magic. Upon Reaching the second Threshold, the user is granted the Divine School of Plant, which has the first and second thresholds unlocked. Upon reaching the third Threshold, the user receives the Divine School of Animal, which has the first and second Thresholds unlocked. Upon reaching the fourth Threshold, the user receives the Divine School of Shadowmancy, with the first and second thresholds unlocked. Upon reaching the final Threshold, the user receives a bonus equal to their tier to all of the skills from the required and granted schools of magic.

It definitely remained a powerhouse that took a little time to get going.

He was absolutely going to stockpile Plant Affinity Crystals. They were perfect for anyone who didn't want to fight. They could reach level five, and then grow food. If they applied it to their Plant school in general, their Plant Growth spell would have an extra five levels to grow, and when they finally realized they needed to level, they'd have that five level bonus to the spells they'd need.

Animal, he was on the fence about. The only advantage over straight Arcane Summoning was that you could summon anything without having to know how the animal functioned. It also included shape-shifting and the ability to enhance yourself with animal bits, but he wasn't enthusiastic about that. It had taken him six months to become accustomed to shifting into a cat so he could play with Monroe.

So, he had six for certain, which worked out nicely. He could always drop the others on later levels.

The only question now, was if, and who, he would recruit for the project. He knew he could trust Eddi, as long as he made it clear that it was a secret not to be shared. This tied in nicely with his other plans, which involved digging out a Dungeon of his own, far from anyone else. A secret Dungeon, sized for only five people, all the way down to the lowest floor.

Bob didn't feel he was being unjustly paranoid. When he reincarnated down to level one, he would be incredibly weak and vulnerable. He wouldn't even be able to portal into his Inventory. Bob was fairly certain that some of the newly arrived Marine Officers harbored a deep-seated desire to hold him upside down and shake him until all his secrets fell out.

The leadership of the Endless had to be facing a similar dilemma. Convincing Eddi to build a secret base out in the middle of nowhere where they could reincarnate down and level back up away from prying eyes shouldn't be difficult. Giving Eddi a chance to stockpile even more Summoning Affinity Crystals would only add to his enthusiasm. He could sweeten the pot by seeding the bottom floors of the secret Dungeon with them as well.

He trusted Bailli, but she wasn't really in it to win it in terms of gathering Affinity Crystals. She'd stacked up quite a few of each type and was just holding onto them. She also didn't delve any more than she needed to, possibly due to the trauma of having lost her arm. Or maybe she was just an example of a balanced, well-adjusted person.

Harv and Elli were also trustworthy, but again, they weren't deeply invested in stockpiling crystals. They were so used to shepherding that they couldn't get out of the mindset, which resulted in Thidwell taking advantage of their expertise.

Thidwell was a possibility. He had no problem with spending the same sort of hours in the Dungeon that Bob did, and he'd likely be interested in stockpiling any and all Affinity Crystals that he could. The problem was that Thidwell made decisive unilateral decisions, often without consulting anyone despite their involvement in the issue he was deciding. Bob knew he could trust Thidwell to do what Thidwell thought was right, which didn't necessarily mean what was right for Bob.

He'd invite Eddi and Bailli, he decided. With the Dungeon being packed with the Endless, Bailli might welcome the ability to delve without being crowded.

Having worked through his thoughts, he turned his attention back to the diagram of the cottonwood. Another half an hour or so, and he might be ready to try it.

"Mike!"

A high clear voice called out his name, and he turned to find Nora running up to him, her irrepressible curls bouncing with each step.

"I can't find Bob," Nora frowned, "so I thought he'd want me to bring them to you."

"Bring what to me?" Mike asked carefully. Bob had begun to master the art of sliding problems off his own shoulders and onto other people.

"I've got a crate with a thousand suits of armor," Nora smiled, "I need somewhere to put the crate."

Mike breathed a sigh of relief. This was going to allow him to mark an item off his list that had continually crept higher and higher over the past few days.

"Where's the crate?" He asked.

Nora giggled and shook her head, "My family decided that as I am a sitting Lady, I deserved all the trappings attendant to my station. So in addition to some really awful dresses, they were able to have the King's Dimensionalist create an Inventory for me, which is where I have the crate."

"When you say Inventory, you mean like an extradimensional space that's just sort of part of you that you can access with a thought?" Mike said slowly, thinking about the video games he'd played as a kid.

"Yep," Nora said, popping the 'P' at the end. "Shiny, right?"

"So you don't even need a bag of holding?" Mike asked as he felt a sudden headache coming on.

"Nope," Nora replied happily, "Didn't Bob explain how an Inventory works? I'm sure he has one, that satchel he wears isn't enchanted at all."

"Bob is probably keeping it a secret for some reason," Mike muttered as he gave in and rubbed his temples. "So anyone can have an inventory, they just need the King's Dimensionalist to cast it on them?"

"Oh no," Nora shook her head, "any dimensionalist with Matrix Manipulation, Spatial Reinforcement, and Spatial Expansion can do it, but the King's Dimensionalist can make it the biggest ones. He only works at the King's request, though, so his skills are pretty much limited to the higher ranks of the Church and the Nobles. I bet Bob could make one for you if you asked him."

"And there is no way to tell what people have in them, or even if they have them?" Mike asked, his eyes closed.

"Well, you could probably use mana sight or detect magic to tell that they had them, but you wouldn't be able tell what was inside," Nora lightly touched his shoulder in the way that Thaylanders did. "Are you ok?"

"Just shifting my mental paradigm without a clutch, again," Mike sighed and looked down at Nora's concerned, innocent face.

She might understand the concept of smuggling to avoid taxes, contraband, and maybe even illicit goods, but not in the context of his experience. No point in burdening the kid with that.

"Well, I'm glad your family recognized how great of a kid you really are," Mike smiled down at her as she huffed at being referred to as a kid. "Let's go get that crate unpacked, there are a lot of Marines taking what are now unnecessary injuries."