Monroe

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Seven. Dungeon Design, getting pissed.

Jason watched Bob cast the first of two rituals that would shape the mana flows and maintain the environment. Bob had warned that he'd be bored out of his mind while Bob sat silently, and he hadn't been wrong. If he could see the mana flowing through the rituals, it would have been interesting, but as it stood, he was just stuck.

He had his tablet out, sketching the floors for his first Dungeon. His Dungeon was going to follow the more classical fantasy ideas. He would start with the farmer's fields being overrun by small angry animals. Then there would be the cleared areas outside the farms, which would lead to the light forest. After switching to a heavy forest, he'd introduce the Kobolds or the Goblins; he wasn't sure which yet, and then he'd have an encampment floor, and then maybe a mini-boss floor. Then things would get subterranean as the adventure took them underground, where they'd have several floors where they had to clear ever-increasing numbers of patrols as they fought their way down to the Goblin city. Once there, they'd need to clear out a few districts, each one its own floor, before they assaulted the keep. By that point, they would be close to the twenty-fifth floor, so if he did things correctly, the last floor could be the big boss floor, Hobgoblin guards, and then finally the Boss.

He wasn't sure what to make of Bob's reticence to use monstrous sapient humanoids. They'd just be summoned monsters anyway. He wasn't planning to have any non-combatants, only feral goblins and then goblin warriors. From the way things were described, his parties would need to clear a floor several times before advancing so that reset/repopulate function was essential. It might take a little away from the sense of the classic adventure and verge more into the territory of MMORPGs, but despite all the RPG elements, this was still real life, and people would need to advance safely.

If there was one problem, it was that monsters only dropped mana crystals, which was basically the same thing as them dropping coins. There was no loot, no awesome weapons, or wonderous items. Well, there were those things, but they weren't part of the Dungeon, but rather the result from farming the Dungeon for the currency to either purchase or create them.

Jason could always charge a bit more to run his Dungeon and use the extra money to have items crafted as a treasure for the parties when they defeated a mini-boss. He smiled as he sketched out the initial fields. He loved being a Dungeon Master, telling a story with his players, watching as they struggled and grew stronger. Now he had a chance to do it for real.

Bob finished his second ritual with a long sigh. The floors from eleven to fifteen were taking a solid two days to build, and he had extrapolated his plans for the remaining floors. Floors sixteen to twenty would take three to four days each. Twenty-one to twenty-five would take eight to ten.

"Trebor," Bob asked the empty floor, "I need to build Dungeons more quickly."

'You need more curators,' Trebor replied. 'If you have a number of curators at level ten, they could take cooperative casting, and working together, they could build floors much more quickly, although the number of mana crystals required would increase exponentially.'

"System Help, Cooperative Casting," Bob said.

System Help; Cooperative Casting. This skill allows users to assist each other. A single user, the lead caster, is selected to activate the skill, and each successive user added to the casting increases the value of the lead caster's skill by a percentage of the successive users casting skill. The total number of casters cannot exceed the lead casters tier. Each caster must be using the same skill, provide the required mana, or in the case of ritual magic, mana crystals, for the full casting.

"So five guys, five hundred mana crystals, five hundred percent of the effect, but in the original one hundred second time frame," Bob muttered.

'Precisely. If you have a thousand people take the curator path and push to level ten, that is two hundred teams effectively able to work together to drive Dungeons down together, without the inherent issues that arise when you have multiple people trying to cast rituals without the ability to see where the mana flows might interact.' Trebor replied.

Bob thought about that for a minute. If people took the path of the Curator, they wouldn't have mana sight for a long time. Now, they'd also be advancing more quickly as they wouldn't have any skills to push over their level cap, but it would still take a while. Teams of five people could build out a Dungeon quickly, although they would still need either someone with mana sight or, more likely Bob himself, to ritually create the mana conduits.

Focusing on quantity over quality, all forty Dungeons could be dropped five levels in just a few months. At that point, they could be dropped further down, and hopefully, they'd have a number of Curators at level twenty-five so he could show them how to properly design the mana flows.

The path forward was clear. At some point, and that point was going to arrive more quickly than he'd initially thought, he'd be relegated to a non-leadership role. Bob was absolutely ok with that. He might find another valley and try to get the ball rolling for some Canadians and English people. From what he understood, Australians were really laid back and friendly, so he could go there as well.

Stretching, he walked over to the Gateway. He'd put it together after the first ritual and taken Jason out, who had realized that watching Bob cast a ritual without mana sight was like watching grass grow. Despite hours of enforced boredom and inactivity, he'd seemed oddly happy and asked him a few questions about building boss floors. Bob was fairly certain that Jason was going to cause some sort of minor tidal catastrophe wherever he built his Dungeon and had made a mental note to make sure it was far, far away from anyone else.

Stepping through the tavern, he walked out the door, eager to get away from everyone for a few hours, and stopped.

There was a massive wall of dirt rising twenty feet off the ground surrounding the Adventurers Guild and all of the structures the Marines had erected. Stacked on top of that was another wall of sandbags, topped with curls of wire.

Bob looked around uncertainly. He'd been busy for the past two days, but apparently, the Marines hadn't been idle either. He cast a persistent effect Flight spell and fell through a portal, appearing twenty feet above the wall. The wall of dirt was more likely a tightly packed hill, with a much steeper approach from the outside. The wall of sandbags was a true wall, and he could now recognize what were likely to be heavy weapon emplacements.

He still planned to have a dozen or so Endless members to help, but it was looking more and more like they wouldn't be as necessary as he'd thought.

Dave leaned back under the Pavilion with Amanda next to him. They were waiting for Tony to bring back the bus from the Airport, and they'd decided to take advantage of the air-conditioned pavilions sold by Gary in Holmstead. They'd cleared, holding back a small percentage of their crystals gathered with Bob, who'd shrugged his assent. Apparently, the number of crystals the Marines were gathering dwarfed the number their tiny group was responsible for. So they'd each kept half of their crystals for a few days, and they'd gotten new armor from Gary, as well as a few other enchanted items.

The pup tent that was actually a small cabin on the inside was probably Dave's favorite purchase. It had cost a thousand mana crystals, and it required ten crystals a day to operate, but it was amazing. He planned to use it in place of the bags of holding to demonstrate Magic to the new group that was due to arrive. There were only six people coming, but they were coming from Australia, so it had been decided to schedule a special trip back to Earth for their recruitment. Jessica had attended UCLA, graduating only a year ago, and she and Amanda had remained quite close, so when the invitation for an all-expenses-paid trip back to the states for her and the rest of her D&D group had been offered, she'd jumped at the chance.

He spotted a plume of dust rising in the distance, and he gently tapped Amanda's shoulder. She certainly hadn't been taking a nap, making cute little snoring noises every few minutes. "Wha?" She asked blearily as she sat up, blinking. "It appears that our guests are arriving," Dave pointed to the approaching dust cloud, "it could be Jack, but he wasn't planning to be back until after dark, and it's barely past two."

Amanda smiled and stretched before standing up with a bounce to her step. "Jessi's coming," she sang happily. "That she is," Dave agreed. They'd both fallen in love with vivacious Aussie. Jessica was incredibly good-natured and easygoing, possessing a zest for life that drew people to her.

They'd been talking about going to see her over Christmas this coming year, but their reunion had been accelerated.

The dust plume arrived behind a dirty school bus which had at one point been painted a robin's egg blue. The engine died as Tony climbed out and gallantly gestured towards Dave and Amanda as three women and three men disembarked. Jessica was in the lead, and she sprinted over the Pavilion where she wrapped first Amanda and then Dave in a tight hug. "It's bloody great to see you two," Jessica smiled, "although I have to ask, if you wanted to muck about in the bush, you could have just flown over to see me, would have been a fair bit less than flying the six of us over here."

She looked around as Tony approached with the others, clearly noting the tent. "None of us brought a swag, nor any tucker," she continued, then rubbed her arms and looked up at the Pavilion curiously.

Dave restrained the urge to do a little jig. Amanda showed no such restraint as she practically danced around her friend. "I missed you so much, Jessi," she said, grabbing Jessica's hands and swinging them out the side as she led her into an impromptu little swing. "I've got so much to talk to you about," Amanda giggled, "not to mention the show that Dave has come up with."

"Oh really," Jessica replied, pulling Amanda in for another hug, then turning both of them toward Dave, their faces cheek to cheek as she smiled at him.

"Hey now," Dave grumbled at the two smiling women, "remember the restriction of unified forces agreement of twenty fifteen. No ganging up on Dave."

Jessica laughed and pulled him into a three-way hug. "You two and your treaties and agreements," she laughed. "I'd say you were both lunatics, but it's working for you."

The rest of the group approached, crowding under the Pavilion to escape the sun.

"So you're the mates that Jessica is always going on about," a short man with a bright smile said, "I'm Bruce, and any mate of Jessica's is a mate of mine."

"Derrick," a redheaded man introduced himself, "but everyone calls me Blue."

"Jake," the third man said simply.

"Danielle," a petite dark-haired woman grinned, "or just Danny."

"Shiela," the last woman said with a sigh, "and yeah, it's my real name," she finished with a good-natured grumble.

"I'm glad you could all make it," Dave offered a smile of his own, "especially on such short notice."

"Mate," Derrick began, "you offered us an all-expenses-paid trip to the states," his grin widened, "where we'd get to play D&D for a solid week. I'd have quit my job if I'd have had to."

"He's not pissing about either," Shiela confirmed, "blokes obsessed with D&D, always going on about what happened last game, what's happening next game, a proper loon."

"What's up with this brolly?" Jake asked, peering up at the Pavilion, "it's downright cool under here, but it's blazing out."

"Well, that leads us nicely into our primary topic," Amanda smiled as she reached into the satchel she'd left on her chair. She pulled out six empty dice bags.

"This is all hard yakka to get a handle on," Danny mumbled as she looked around.

They were inside the tent, sitting around the table in the main room. Tony had headed back to town in Vera's van to pick up a few things, but everyone had an ice-cold beer in front of them, and a shepherd's pie was cooking in the oven.

"Bloody fantastic it is," Derrick drained his beer, slamming the bottle onto the table with a wild smile. "You've got fucking Magic, mate!"

Dave grinned back at him. Derrick had many of the same qualities that Jessica did. Hell, all of the Aussies were easy to like.

"So another universe?" Jessica asked.

"Yep, we figured we'd take you over there and get you started with a few levels," Dave offered.

"A few levels," Jake snorted, "he tosses it off like it's nothing."

"I'm all in, mate," Derrick stated firmly, "you said that portal spell hit around level fifteen with the Endless Swarm class?"

Dave nodded as he took a long swig of his beer.

"And you lot are thirteen already?" Derrick asked.

"We are," Dave admitted, "although I should warn you, at the moment Bob is still in charge, so he'll be able to slip you in, but I've gotten the distinct impression that the U.S. military is taking over, and quickly, so access to the Dungeon might be even more limited than it is now."

"He's a mate, right? Just have him build one for you," Danny suggested.

"It's a little more involved than that, but, Jessica, you remember Jason, right?" Amanda asked her friend.

"That tall sexy bloke, right?" Jessica mused, "shy, couldn't look me in the eye without blushing?"

"That would be Jason," Amanda agreed, "although he's gotten over the shy thing now, you were just a little too much for him when he was a freshman."

"He's interested in becoming a Curator, which is the class that builds and maintains the Dungeons," she explained, "so assuming we can get him rushed up a bit, we'll be able to have him build us a Dungeon."

"You believe Bob about this whole apocalypse thing?" Bruce asked.

"He literally can't lie," Dave replied with a shrug, "so I believe that he believes it, and the man hasn't been wrong about anything so far."

"We ought to get our own government back home involved," Shiela said quietly, "a year and a half isn't that long when you're talking about evacuating an entire country."

"Too right," Bruce agreed, "so once Blue gets that portal spell, he can just pop back over and show off a bit of the old magic, get the PM on board."

"I reckon the diplo's will waste a whole year, being up themselves and all, before they get around to the meat of it, so having a regular bloke pop up and get the herd moving is the right move," Jessica nodded.