Monroe

Chapter Two Hundred and Forty-Two. Prepping for a well earned vacation.

Bob woke up to the plaintive cries of a heartbroken kitty. He sat up and swung his legs out of bed, planting his feet on the floor as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

"Monroe?" Bob called, not seeing him in the bedroom. Staggering to his feet, he headed to the kitchen, where he found Monroe sitting in front of his tragically empty food bowl.

"How could I starve a kitty like that?" Bob commiserated, "I should be ashamed of myself." Opening the stasis box that held Monroe's meals, Bob pulled out the last bowl of diced fish and placed it in front of Monroe, who immediately began to devour his meal. Bob checked the time, but it was still early.

Today marked the end of the fourth week of his marathon delve. As the Secretary of Defence had requested, he'd popped out for breakfast every day for three days, then he'd left word with Mike that he was busy and gotten to work. He'd dropped out of his inventory once a week to retrieve and send messages, but aside from that, he'd been putting in the work. Eighteen hours a day, for twenty-eight days, grinding away on the fifty-first floor of his Arcane Depths. He had added seven thousand two hundred and seventy-two mana crystals to the pile dedicated to tiering up and four hundred and fifty-three Animal Affinity Crystals.

Overall, he was quite pleased with his progress. It had required a bit of preparation, but with a full month's worth of meals for himself and Monroe in stasis, all he had to do was wake up, take a shower, and drop into his Arcane Depths, then start grinding. He could eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner while he delved. Now, he'd make his rounds, collecting the King's crystals, then he'd restock his meals, take care of anything urgent that had come up during the month, and the next day he'd head to Utah for some rest and relaxation.

Everything was going according to plan.

"Ah, there he is," Mike said, waving Bob over as he entered the tavern. There was quite a crowd at his table, Dave and Amanda, Jason, Jessica, Nora, and four others he didn't recognize.

"Bob, this Esteban, he's delivering the crystals from the Mexican Dungeons," Bob nodded, and Esteban flashed him a bright smile. "Aaron is the representative from the Canadian Dungeons," another stranger identified with another nod. "Hiro has been sent from the Japanese Dungeon," more nodding, "While Iosef is from the Russian Dungeon."

"Nice to meet all of you," Bob said awkwardly. He'd never felt comfortable with meeting a bunch of strangers for the sole purpose of exchanging money. It felt even odder to be the one receiving it.

Mike had already cleared a space, so Bob summoned out his scales and started emptying the pouches as they were handed to him. Glacier Valley had crested thirty-eight million crystals, while the Old Guard had raised two hundred thousand. Jessica had surprised him with a whopping four hundred thousand, while Jason had delivered a hundred thousand on behalf of England. Mexico, Canada, Japan, and Russia all delivered relatively small amounts, just over five thousand each.

All told, it was over thirty-nine million mana crystals.

The strangers all departed after they'd delivered their crystals, save for Esteban, who hung back. "Mr. Whitman," he caught Bob's attention. "President Garcia asked me to give you this," he passed him a photograph, "he asked if you could provide any notes regarding the 'familiar' skill."

Bob looked at the photograph. There was the President of Mexico, sitting at was probably the Mexican equivalent of the Resolute Desk, looking with fond exasperation at a huge white ball of fluff that was sprawled indolently across this keyboard. "I can put together some notes. Would it be alright if you pick them up next month?" Bob asked.

"Of course," Esteban nodded, "Snowball is in excellent health, so there is no rush."

With another smile, Esteban left, leaving Bob surrounded by friends and acquaintances.

"We've got everything ready," Amanda began, "I've been practicing my enchanting, so I have half a dozen swags, and Dave has the table and chairs handled."

"I've got coolies, and tucker handled," Jessica added.

"Eddi, Wayna, Baili, and Erick will all be here at eight tomorrow morning, and we'll jump over then," Amanda continued, "Dave rented a van, so we've got room for everyone. There is dispersed camping available at Capitol Reef, so we'll be headed there."

"Arches and Canyonlands are packed, and Zion is even worse," Dave reported, "so we'll likely be exploring Capitol."

"I've finished training her Majesty's Curators, and I've been given leave to take a week off," Jason sighed, and while Bob didn't know him too well, he could have sworn the man was almost wilted. "This will be a lovely vacation."

"Sounds like everything has been taken care of," Bob smiled. "Now, I just need to drop off the King's crystals, hopefully without encountering the King, and I'll be free."

"That shouldn't be a problem," Mike said wryly, "the King is on Earth."

"Ah," Bob replied, his mouth suddenly dry. "How is that going?"

"He's decided to speak to the United Nations," Mike shook his head, "although he was willing to do so in a closed session. I have a feeling he's going to spill the beans as it were and then offer to help people take refuge here."

Bob nodded slowly. He could see that happening. The King was a complicated being, but his motivations were clear. "I'm going to go with not my problem," Bob said firmly.

"The President agrees," Mike replied. "She had SecDef pass on a message to that effect, as well requesting your presence next month where she will be recognizing your efforts to aid the nation at a private ceremony." Mike smiled at Bob's expression, which showed a great deal of reluctance. "Relax, she'll pin a medal on you, thank you for your service, and you'll shake a few hands. It's a kiss-off, formally acknowledging your efforts and implicitly expressing that your assistance is no longer required."

Bob relaxed. "That's alright then," he offered the group a smile. "I'm going to pop off and drop these crystals off with Ericka; I'll see everyone tomorrow morning."

"Before you go," Mike raised a hand, "I hoping you could pop over to the Redoubt this afternoon, and take a look at the new Dungeon we've built. It's not spawning monsters evenly, and we can't figure out why."

"Sure," Bob agreed, "I'll meet you back here at one."

"Eric?" Bob frowned as he shook his hand. "When did you become a Curator? I thought you were on the rifleman path?"

"I was," Eric replied, "but after we got everyone from Earth over here, I felt like there was more I could be doing, so I reincarnated to become a Curator, that way, I could feel productive, you know?"

"Alright," Bob shook his head, "well, it's good to see you again, I understand you have a mana flow issue somewhere?"

"Something is wrong," Eric agreed, "and it's probably the mana, I just can't figure it out." He motioned for Bob to follow him.

Bob followed Eric out of the tavern, and they hiked in companionable silence. He was trying to reconcile the muscle car-loving goof with the man who had planned the operation to retrieve millions of wounded veterans and had now dedicated himself to curating a Dungeon.

After ten minutes, they arrived in a clearing. Bob pushed his mana into the pattern for a persistent effect Mana Sight spell, and the world around him fluoresced into brilliance. He could see the mana being pulled down into the pattern etched into the stone slab above the Dungeon.

"Give me a few minutes to check it over," Bob said, his eyes tracing the flow of the ambient mana.

"The issue is down on the eighth floor," Eric replied uncertainly.

"It's all tied together," Bob muttered distractedly. "A tiny disturbance here, an eddy further down, it can manifest downstream."

"Right here," Bob pointed to a junction between two streams of ambient mana just after they entered the pattern. "You see how the flow from the right is denser than the one on the left? The apertures to pull the mana into the pattern are the same diameter, so you have turbulence in your mana stream before it even feeds into the maintenance pattern."

Eric squatted on his heels next to Bob and squinted. "I can't really tell the difference," he admitted.

"Take a few minutes," Bob suggested, "I've been doing this for a couple of years, so I've had a lot more practice. Just watch the flows."

Eric frowned but stayed focused. After a few more seconds, his expression brightened. "Ok, yeah, I see it now. It's hard to see it at first glance," he said apologetically. "Is that what's causing the problem?" He asked.

"Probably not," Bob shook his head, "it's a problem, but I doubt it is the problem. I suspect we'll find quite a few minor issues on our way towards the real one, but the thing is, the minor ones could be contributing, or they might end up being responsible for something on a deeper floor. Best to check the flows now, so if something else does pop up, you can rest easy knowing everything down to the eighth floor is solid."

"Alright, so to fix it, I should narrow the opening that the denser stream is flowing through, evening them out, right?" Eric asked as he pulled out a pouch from his satchel.

"That's what I would do," Bob agreed.

Eric cast the ritual, rectifying the problem, and then squared his shoulders. "What's next?"

Bob grinned, "We keep looking for problems, and if we can't find any, we go down to the first floor."

There had been quite a few issues with the Dungeon, but after six hours of careful inspection and repair, they'd confirmed that monsters were spawning properly.

Now Bob was contemplating his camping gear.

Summon Mana-Infused Object was so incredibly versatile that he'd come to rely on it for everything from a towel, to a bed, to his flatware. He sighed. He'd come to rely on his skills and spells, and not having ready access to them was disquieting. His mana pool was nothing to scoff at, but being unable to regenerate it was where the real issue arose, and Dave and Amanda had discovered that Mana Potions only increased your mana by a fraction of what they were supposed to. Apparently, the potions worked by increasing your regeneration, not by adding mana directly to the pool. You gained a little bit of the mana used to create the potion, but nothing else.

Still, Jessica had Dave and Amanda with 'swags,' which they'd then enchanted. He'd need to feed five crystals into it in order to power the enchantments for a week, but it was a neat setup. He went down his list. Real blanket, real pillow, real toothbrush, real toothpaste, real soap, real scrubby, real cat brush.

They would be stopping at a grocery store to pick up food for the trip, and he took a moment to wonder how Monroe would have reacted to canned cat food. Fortunately, the stasis box in the swag was just big enough to hold seven days of Monroe meals, so he wasn't going to have to risk the displeasure of his feline overlord.

Seven glorious, Dungeon free days. He smiled to himself as he rolled up another pair of socks. They'd go hiking, camp underneath the stars, and in general revel in the glorious heat of the desert. Growing up in Watts, Bob had developed the typical southern California resistance to heat, further amplified by the frequent lack of air conditioning at home. If he had to point out a single part of Thayland that irked him, it would likely be the temperature. It was twenty below for most of the winter, and a hot summer day was seventy-five degrees.

He and Monroe were going to bake in the sun, and then he'd play D&D with his friends every night. It was going to be fantastic. He looked over his clothes and kit one more time before nodding. He was ready.

"Madam President," Ed began, "with all due respect, he could have just flown around times square for a few minutes and then made an announcement to the entire world, live on international television."

President Hartford waved a hand dismissively. "I'm aware," she said drily, "I'm not sure what his angle is though."

"As I've reported, it's my belief that the King of Greenwold is going to try and poach as many of the citizens of Earth as he can. His kingdom is barely hanging on, his population level is almost sufficient to keep up with the waves and tides, but from what I've been able to dig up, one bad tide can take out a dozen towns, thousands of citizens, putting the kingdom on its heels again." Ed shook his head before continuing, "The King is insanely powerful; Bob was right to label him as a global threat. He can't be everywhere at once, though, so if more than one thing goes wrong, he's relying on subordinates who do not have the best interests of his Kingdom in mind."

"There is no way this doesn't go public, closed session or not," she grumbled. "We had a plan, damnit, and it wasn't too bad of a plan. Our most recent estimates were eighty-percent of the country saved," she shook her head.

"This might be for the best," Ed offered. "There are a lot of benefits of leveling up in Thayland, hell, the greenies can finally get their wish of clean energy," he finished with a snort.

"We don't have space for our citizens over there yet," The President countered. "How many of them are going to want to go over right away, if only to take advantage of a regeneration ritual for their loved ones or themselves? The plan was to keep the vast majority of the population in stasis for the duration."

"That ties in rather neatly with another matter we need to discuss," Ed said carefully. "There are a number of personnel who are tired of delving the Dungeon and have reached would normally be the end of their rotation. By and large, they've reached the level cap, and most of them have been killing monsters eight hours a day, seven days a week, for the past four months. They've sent their grievance up the chain of command, but things are a little chaotic. In short, we need to start rotating personnel, but we're not sure what to do with those who are already tier capped."

"Can't we just rotate them back here?" The President asked. "That's the standard procedure, isn't it?"

"I brought a visual aid to help illustrate the issue," Ed handed her his tablet, where a before and after picture was displayed. "Lance Corporal Edwards was five foot nine inches tall and a hundred and thirty-six pounds before arriving on Thayland. He selected a more physical path, and he is now six feet tall and two hundred and sixty-one pounds. As you can see, explaining away weight would be problematic, but the height is impossible. His friends and family would barely recognize him."

"I think we can table that problem for now," The President shook her head and pushed the tablet back over. "Depending on what happens at the U.N., we might not need to hold things quite so close to the vest."