Monroe

Chapter Three Hundred and Twenty-One. Speedrun.

"I'm going to miss fast travel," Dave lamented as they stepped through last portal.

"I'm not going to give up the Portal spell," Bob said, "we do sort of need it to fly the Freedom."

"But you won't be able to portal us very far after we reincarnate," Dave argued.

"That was the reason we built next to a Dungeon, so we wouldn't have to," Bob replied.

"It's got to be done, right?" Jessica asked.

Bob nodded. The System now offered Evolution alongside Reincarnation, but even with the cost increase that came with the natural affinities, he'd be able to level back up quickly enough, and the lure of a double or even a triple affinity was too strong to give up.

He hadn't told the group, but he'd been able to sense that opening the portal between dimensions for the Freedom had been the absolute limit of his power. At the peak of tier eight, he'd be able to do it without sacrificing five of his threshold advancements to boost his portal spell.

It wasn't just that he wanted to reincarnate, which he did, he felt that he deserved to reincarnate. He'd been lurching from crisis to crisis for three years, making decisions under duress. Hell, his choice to become a summoner had been made out of necessity to save Monroe, not that he regretted it. Every step of the way, his decisions had been dictated by survival, first Monroe's, then Earth's. Escaping with his friends aboard the Freedom had been more than just avoiding the mechinations of powerful beings, it had meant finally having a chance to reincarnate and live a normal life. The new normal under the indifferent rule of the system wasn't all bad, and Bob was looking forward to trying it.

"Bob, you with us?" Mike asked, drawing him from his reverie.

"Sorry, got lost for a moment," Bob replied, shaking his head.

"Heavy thoughts, yeah?" Jessica said.

"I was just thinking how nice it's going to be to reincarnate, and live a normal life," Bob smiled. "Wake up, eat breakfast, play with Monroe, put in a good days work in the Dungeon, come home, do a little house work, take care of the garden."

"Dinner with friends," Amanda added, "weekly D&D games."

"If we're allowed to stay, we could have ten years of normal," Bob said wistfully.

"All we can do is wait," Dave shook his head. "That, and collect as many first clear rewards as we can," he grinned.

While Monroe had loved it, the rest of the group hadn't been terribly impressed with the grasslands Dungeon. The rewards had been lackluster, the only thing worthwhile was an Animal Affinity Crystal. The second Dungeon they'd made it to had been more interesting. The monsters had been a sort of two headed rhinoceras made out of wood. It had offered them an Ent Affinity Crystal, another conjunction, this one Animal and Plant. Neither Dungeon had a hidden completion bonus, or at least not one they'd been able to discover, which made farming them an unprofitable proposition.

"Fueling up the Freedom isn't a bad idea either," Eli added. "Just in case things don't go our way."

"We've got another six Dungeons in easy distance from us," Bob had studied the location of each of the Dungeons they'd been able to detect from orbit. "After that, we're looking at long days of travel. We should be able to clear them all in fifty days, assuming we don't run into any issues, and assuming we run them once and move on."

"I'm all for it," Harv spoke up. "Stars and stones, the rewards are amazing, to say nothing of the materials I've been able to harvest from the monsters. I'd love to have a huge variety of materials when we finally settle down and reincarnate."

"Where are we, as far as our mana crystals go?" Bob asked.

"We have just over a hundred thousand in the pile," Dave replied. "After we finished the town, we've just been burning them to push past the threshold so we can reincarnate."

"Sadly, hunting first clears doesn't pay out crystals," Mike said.

Bob nodded. It seemed like the average Dungeon contained about two thousand monsters, and they were lucky to break a hundred mana crystals from the monsters. It was enough to keep them going in terms of powering their equipment, but it wasn't refueling the Freedom, or advancing them through their thresholds.

"Ordast seemed fairly reasonable, beyond his fanaticism," Mike continued. "If they decide to tell us to leave, I think he'd be alright with us farming hard for a few days."

"We're at eight runs a day now, yeah? That's a solid ten thousand crystals," Jessica added.

"Some of us don't want to tank for twenty hours a day," Jack groused. "Not that I don't appreciate our healers," he hastened to assure her, "but getting hit hurts."

"It's definitely not a sustainable pace for anyone but Bob," Dave agreed. "But we can do it short term if we have to."

"The smart thing would probably be to take a couple of weeks and fuel up the Freedom," Amanda sighed. "But honestly? We enough crystals to make a few jumps, and if we had to, we could pop back to Earth and camp a Dungeon there. I'd rather snag those tasty first clears."

"Was that even a choice?" Eddi asked. "We're going to get that awesome loot!"

Ordast exited the Dungeon, looking around hopefully, only to be disappointed again.

The Elloirial had sent him to human's village, instructing him to activate the summoning stone once he'd arranged a meeting with the strangers.

The problem was that the humans weren't here. The collection of structures was neat, tidy, and well constructed, but completely void of life. The trappings were there, with furnishings and utensils, but the humans themselves were missing.

The first few days had at least been interesting. The humans had created an artificial lake, and had harnessed the power of the rushing water to spin a series of paddlewheels, which in turn worked to drive a set of machines. These machines somehow pushed lightning down drawn copper wires, which ran to all of the structures. He'd discovered that each structure had dozens of exits for the lightning, oddly shaped receptacles, some of which had devices connected to them with cables. Despite not being able to sense anything beyond ambient mana, the lightning was used to provide light, and air circulation. The structure he'd inspected had a fan mounted to the ceiling, with a glass sphere beneath it. He'd activated a tiny switch on the wall next to the door when he'd entered the room, and the light and fan had both come to life.

As fascinating as it was to see, his interest faded as the days passed. He would have left were it not for the message.

It was clear that most of the structures were individual homes, but there was one building much larger than the others that stood at the end of a long path. It was arranged more like a barracks, with thirty-two tiny rooms, clearly meant for sleeping, and little else. A row of stalls for relieving oneself furthered this idea, although Ordast was uncomfortable with cold water inches from his behind, rather than the nice soothing magma he was accustomed to. They'd realized after a single night that the little levers needed to be depressed after attending to their ablutions, as the stench had been powerful. Another argument for magma in his mind.

When he'd entered the building, he'd found another stone tablet on a table, crudely depicting a humanoid figure pressing a button atop a pillar, then another figure with a bubble coming out of it's mouth with some sort of script inside. The pillar with the button on it was at the back of the room, underneath a large sheet of glass and other, less identifiable materials.

He'd pressed the button, and the panel had flared to life, displaying an image of Bob smiling, and speaking. Unfortunately, Ordast hadn't been able to understand a word he was saying. The image had continued, with Bob providing a tour of the town, and from context Ordast had been able to determine that they were welcome to stay in the barracks and clear the trial nearby, and that presumably the humans would return soon.

The video had also provided a walkthrough of the trial, which was helpful.

As frustrating as it was to wait, he couldn't fault the human's hospitality. They'd not only been polite, but they'd offered their help with the trials without asking for anything in return. As he settled down into a chair in the barracks common area, he sighed. Where in Vorstach's name were they?

"Not just no, hell no," Mike hissed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Too right," Jessica agreed. "We're all more than a bit crook from that, and you want to have another go? You can piss right off."

"I'm just saying it was fast," Eddi defended himself.

"And we're just saying that Kelli really was being gentle, and we're not keen to take any more psionic blasts," Jessica finished.

Bob nodded, wincing as his headache flared from the motion. "Whenever we touch base with Thayland, I'll offer this Telepathy Affinity Crystal to him," he mumbled. "Still owe him."

"I'm sort of glad this was the last one," Wayna muttered.

"It only took fifty-eight days," Jack said.

"Worth it," Dave whispered as he sat down next to Amanda, pulling her into his embrace.

Bob had to agree.

Most of the Dungeons hadn't been that interesting, just some variation of a plant or animal theme. They'd collected conjunction affinity crystals for every element combined with both plant and animal, with the bonus ratios shifted in each direction.

Some of them were interesting, or at least more rewarding. Bob looked at his armor.

Living Stone Scale Mail.

This suit of Medium Armor is matrix-bound to user Robert Whitman. This allows the user to store the Armor in the user's matrix, where if needed it will repair itself of any damage at the rate of 1% per second, at the cost of one mana per second. Additionally, the user is better able to resist poison and venom, gaining an 8% reduction in those effects.

Made of Living Stone from a Stone Scale Ent Wyvern. This increases the material hardness from a base of 60 to 124.

The nature of this material reduces all physical damage received by 16%.

The nature of this material allows the user to maintain a full range of motion.

This item has been enhanced with a Wytchwood Infusion. The user may increase or decrease the bouyonacy of this item, at the cost of one mana per second.

This item has been enhanced with a Flamefeather Infusion. The user may cause the armor to produce a set of Flamefeather wings, allowing the user to slow their descent, or for the cost of one mana per second, to glide.

This item has been enhanced with a Lightningroot Infusion. This allows the armor to channel lightning damage through itself rather than the user, reducing lightning damage taken by 16%

This item has been enhanced with a Floodvine Infusion. This allows the armor to produce, and then absorb, a water-like sap which cleanses the users skin of all contaminates, which are then absorbed back into the armor.

It had started off as a set of granite colored armor made of overlapping scales that were very flexible, despite their hardness and texture. Then he'd pumped a few of the Dungeon rewards into it. Now it looked like braided roots and vines covered by paper thin granite scales. When he activated the Flamefeather wings, a set of incoporeal wings appeared, made entirely of dark red flame. They weren't particularly useful at the moment, as he could fly on his own, but they might be useful when he reincarnated.

By far the Floodvine Infusion was his favorite. That Dungeon had been annoying as hell, a series of caverns that followed an underground river, forcing them to swim through tunnels between them, and endure the frequent attempts at flooding the caverns to drown them.

It had all been worth it. The Floodvine Infusion was like a cool, not cold, shower. It covered you in water, and then pulled it back in, leaving you dry and perfectly clean.

He wasn't going to stop taking showers, but in the middle of a Dungeon? It was nice to be clean. In theory, it would also help if he was fighting monsters that tracked by scent, but they'd encountered those before they'd found the Floodvine.

The entire group had taken advantage of the Floodvine infusion, the frequent use of which had served to raise their morale during some of the longer and filthier Dungeons.

The last Dungeon had been populated by living crystaline beetles that used Telepathic attacks. It was the first time they'd encountered any psionic powers in a Dungeon, and he wasn't eager to repeat the experience.

Interestingly, they hadn't found any Dungeons with Arcane Affinities, nor had they found any with Animancy, Necromancy, Shadowmancy, Sanctum, Netherworld, Order, Discord, Divination, Invocation, or Protection. It had really been just the four elements, as well as Plant and Animal.

Bob suspected that it was because those were the magics in abundance when the Dungeons were created, which meant that there should be Dungeons with other magics. He suspected that any Dungeon near the Endless tower would likely offer Summoning, while a Dungeon near the Black Cathedral would have Necromancy.

Still, they'd finished the trip with dozens of Affnity Crystals, and some very nice items with multiple infusions.

As he closed his eyes, he idly wondered if Ordast had made it to their town yet.