Monroe

Chapter One Hundred and Ninety-Seven. A load off.

Bob woke up slowly to the sound of distant thunder and running water. It took a few moments for him to realize the sound of rumbling thunder was actually Monroe purring at the foot of his bed, and the sound of running water was the hydroelectric generator he'd bolted to the fifty-five-gallon drum of water he'd set up in the corner.

Reaching up, he flipped the switch and smiled as the lamp spread a gentle glow across his bed and desk. Electricity was a beautiful thing. He sat up and carefully wiggled backward, extracting his feet slowly from under Monroe, who didn't appear to be interested in waking up yet. He stood up and stretched slowly before heading into the bathroom for his morning ablutions.

Twenty minutes later, freshly showered and shaved, Bob sat down at his desk and woke up his laptop. He'd been working on a document explaining the basics of the System from the perspective of educating someone who knew nothing about it. He ought to have done it before, as illustrated by the issue of the Curators not having taken persistent effect. The problem had been caused by his having focused too heavily on building the Dungeon, to the exclusion of all else.

He was working to correct that mistake. He'd taught the first batch of Curators yesterday, and having them excavate the twentieth floor had saved hours of time. They'd been suitably awed when he'd cast the first five-fold ritual, and he looked forward to seeing how well they did this morning when they attempted to duplicate it. If they had been paying attention, the twentieth floor should be completed today.

His new phone rattled softly against the mouse pad, the alarm letting him know it was time to head up for breakfast. At the moment, the phone wasn't good for much beyond being an alarm clock, unless he was in Holmstead. Thidwell had asked Bailli to bring one to him, as Jack had gotten his cellphone tower up and running. She'd regarded the new devices with suspicion, right up until the moment when he'd pulled a dozen romance novels off of Vera's plex server for her. Bob had not missed the only two apps on the home page, which were titled 'Books' and 'Movies.'

Jack was clearly not content to rest on his laurels, as opening the app prompted him to connect to the network in Holmstead where they could verify his subscription and populate the content.

Not that Bob was complaining. He'd check with Jack to make sure, but the man had likely saved him from spending a lot of time on Earth. Closing the lid to his laptop, having learned years ago that keyboards had a sort of magnetic attraction for Monroe, he dropped a portal at his feet and fell out of his inventory.

"So how long until they can start digging out Dungeons?" Mike asked over his steak and eggs.

"If they can cast the rituals successfully this morning, then this afternoon," Bob replied, dipping a corner of his buttered toast into his egg yolk.

Mike's smile was brilliant as he cut up his steak. "That's good news," he speared a bite of steak, "we're starting to feel some pressure from the active-duty guys. Having another Dungeon will alleviate that."

"I imagine they could probably build out all forty Dungeons down to the tenth floor inside of a week," Bob offered, "by then, there will be more curators to help, and that'll keep the speed going even as the floors expand." He shook his head, "By the time they're all trained, you'll have a thousand curators who can drop a Dungeon remarkably quickly, or given that the skills cross over, build a tower equally quickly."

"Is one day of training really enough?" Mike asked.

"They know more than I do about structural engineering," Bob shrugged, "hell, some of them know more than I do about environmental controls. They just needed instruction on how to do it with magic. The only tough part is the mana flows, and while I can show them how I do it, it honestly has a lot more artistry to it than you'd think. Some of them will build Dungeons that need a lot of maintenance, some will need a little, but ultimately that doesn't matter."

"Why doesn't that matter?" Mike made an aborted motion with a steak-laden fork as he spotted Monroe, who had been slowly sidling towards his plate.

"Because while they're being built as permanent Dungeons, they aren't, not really," Bob explained as he leaned over the table and gently nudged Monroe back to the center. "They only need to be maintained for twenty-three months, at which point everyone is going to fuck off back to Earth."

Mike appeared to consider that as he focused on his eggs, aware of the covetous glances they were receiving. "I'm not sure that's entirely accurate," he said quietly. "Some of us are fairly disillusioned or maybe disenfranchised with our government. The prospect of settling down into a new life with their new limbs, away from any governmental interference in their lives beyond a ten percent tax, is awfully appealing."

"I know how they feel," Bob grunted. "But when it comes to scale, even the Dungeon we currently have is more than the Old Guard need," Bob continued, "when you consider that under normal circumstances, they'll only need to delve a few hours a week. The forty Dungeons we have planned for Glacier Valley represent a delving capacity for hundreds of thousands of people," Bob shook his head, "I'd need to do the math, but I remember that I'd expected one hundred and fifty thousand people to be delving the Dungeon every eight hours. Expand that eight hours to twelve to reflect the fact that people don't like to be awake at night, and you have two hundred and twenty-five thousand. Double that again because you don't have to delve for eight hours to get the crystals you need and wind up with four hundred and fifty-thousand people delving those Dungeons for crystals each day. Then you have to consider that people don't need to delve every day to live a comfortable life, and you extrapolate out to a week, and suddenly you realize that the Dungeons we're building in this little valley will have more capacity than the entire population of the planet."

Bob paused for breath, and took a drink of water, then waved his hand. "Of course, those numbers aren't perfectly accurate," he acknowledged, "the reality is the first five floors will be very lightly used, but then again, those are also the smallest floors, with a capacity of only ten thousand. Still, the long and short of it is that the Dungeons don't need to be built perfectly, because we not only have enough curators to assign one to monitor each floor of each Dungeon, but once the Earth is integrated, and the last of the tier ten threats has dissipated, everyone will be gone."

"I'll defer to your expertise," Mike replied thoughtfully. "What are your plans once you've trained up the Curators?"

"I'll dig a quick Dungeon for the Aussies," Bob smiled, "although this time I'll insist the first batch of people they bring back over become curators; that way, I'm not stuck doing all the heavy lifting again."

Mike winced. Bob saw the expression and paused his fork's travel. "What?" Bob asked.

"From what I've overheard, the brass has got the Australians pretty well contained," Mike explained with a grimace, "they're locked out of the Dungeon, they don't have a curator that can build their own yet, and if they take a portal back to Earth, they're on no-fly lists. The powers that be want to be the ones to explain the situation to the Australian government, not a bunch of their own citizens."

Bob started to chuckle, and then he began laughing so hard he started turning red. Mike moved to stand, but Bob waved him back down. It took almost two minutes for Bob to regain control of himself.

"Oh, that was priceless," Bob wheezed. "Of course, the government wants to control everything, when don't they? Mike, the Aussies are in Harbordeep right now, delving like mad to level up. I have no doubt that they won't come back until they can open portals on their own, at which point they'll start the ball rolling on their own."

Bob wiped his eyes. "I needed that," he chuckled again, "no-fly lists," he chortled.

Mike cleared his throat, confused by Bob's outburst. "If they'd have asked me, I would have told them to leave the Australians alone," he offered.

"I know you weren't involved," Bob waved his hand, "you've got way to much common sense."

"The problem is, now that this conversation has been had, I'll have to report their location and likely plans," Mike grumbled.

"Eh," Bob shrugged, moving his plate over toward Monroe. "What are they going to do, go to Harbordeep and pull them out of the Adventurers Guild there?"

Mike appeared to consider that question for a moment before shaking his head. "I guess they couldn't, could they?" he mused.

"So when they suggest exactly that because I'm sure they will," Bob leaned forward slightly, "make sure they understand." Picking up Monroe, who hadn't been interested in his plate, Bob slid the big cat onto his Makres. "But for now, I'm off to watch those new Curators put the finishing touches on their first Dungeon floor."

The last ritual was completed, and Bob watched as the mana flows settled down.

It wasn't as bad as he'd feared. He'd had to stop four people and correct their rituals as they laid them out.

"Good job everyone, you've successfully created your first Dungeon floor," Bob shouted, drawing a cheer from the men. "Now for the fun part; Start inspecting the mana conduits, and look for any disturbances or leaks."

He could see half a dozen leaks that, when taken as a whole, would require weekly maintenance. Part of the issue was that they had used fifty rituals to cover the area, and the edges didn't always link properly, as some of them had better or worse visualization skills when it came to creating a two-inch pipe.

Two of the men who'd cast next to each found that exact issue, and after a quiet conversation, they both approached him.

"Sir," the taller of the two began, "when we cast our ritual, we didn't quite have the size of our conduits identical. Can we just cast another ritual to put a joint in place to handle the transfer?"

"Absolutely," Bob nodded, "you'll find that this sort of thing happens, even when you're trying to link two of your own rituals."

Both men nodded and hurried back to the offending connection, where the shorter of the two began to cast another ritual.

Jack smiled as he watched one of the Endless pull out a cellphone and make a call. She was extolling the virtues of the movie she'd just watched.

It hadn't taken long for the Adventurers in Holmstead, and the Endless in particular, to start using their new phones. And oh, how the crystals rolled in.

"Are you even listening to me?" Chris asked.

"I wasn't, and I apologize," Jack replied, "I was caught up in my thoughts."

Chris sighed, "I was saying that you could go with a prepaid card route for subscriptions if you're looking for more automation."

Jack nodded. He'd been worried about handling subscriptions; he wanted it to be convenient, and the lack of digital currency was a serious stumbling block. Selling prepaid subscription cards would help to resolve that, and as a bonus, they'd make for great gifts as well. Dad's birthday? Get him a subscription to the novel service! Jack was already seeing revenue from both the novel and movie/television service, although he knew that despite his massive library of content, those things would eventually wane without anything new being added. He hoped that Earth would be recovered and back to making new shows and movies before that happened, but he had his doubts.

"I like it, although I wonder if we can figure out a way to keep the production of the cards completely in-house," Jack mused. "ideally, I'd like to see everything moved over to Thayland, but I know that's not possible yet."

Chris looked at him suspiciously. "Why is that, exactly?"

It was Jack's turn to sigh. Chris was absolutely brilliant, and beyond that, astute. He'd been willing to accept the existence of an alternate universe, as well as magic, remarkably quickly. Jack had explained to him what he was doing, although he'd left out the impending apocalypse.

"Supposedly, in a year and a half or so, magic is going to make its way into our universe, and when it does, all hell will break loose," Jack explained, "when that happens, I can foresee massive supply chain issues."

"I can see how the sudden introduction of magic would change things," Chris nodded, then turned his head to look out over the valley, with Holmstead in the distance. "I have to wonder what Earth will really like in a truly post-scarcity society," he muttered.

"Is it?" Jack said quietly, "I'm not so sure it's post-scarcity. While mana crystals may be an effectively endless resource, and through them, all other resources can be obtained, they aren't a resource that can be obtained effortlessly."

"You said that killing the monsters for the crystals was basically a joke once you'd leveled up that summons of yours," Chris replied.

"True," Jack acknowledged, "although that was in large part due to the Summoning Affinity Crystals that the Endless grind out. If you don't have one of those Affinity Crystals, things are much more difficult, although still doable. Regardless, to obtain mana crystals, you have to kill monsters that are trying to kill you. I'm not entirely sure how everyone from Earth is going to adjust to that new reality."

"They'll be a bit of a societal reshuffle, I'm sure," Chris agreed, "and I can absolutely see the collapse of every currency as they are replaced by mana crystals. Ultimately, I don't think too much will change. Speaking of those Affinity Crystals, do you have mine?"

"I do," Jack replied, pulling out a pair of Affinity Crystals from his pocket. "I have to ask, though, are you sure this is the way you want to go?"

"You said that you don't even use the endless swarm ability until your almost at the level cap, and you wreck monsters with just your summons, right?" Chris asked.

"Yeah," Jack nodded.

"Then the Bountiful Step path will be perfect; I'll have the big fuck off summons to kill for me, just like you, and I'll have some truly insane bonuses to my Dimension spells," Chris took the Affinity Crystals with a smile.

"What are you going to do with Dimension, though?" Jack asked, "Or rather what are you going to do with it that you'd need a bonus?"

Chris' smile turned devious. "What am I going to do with the ability to make vastly larger extra-dimensional spaces? I have a few ideas."