Monroe

Chapter Two Hundred and One. Speeding up.

Time until System Integration: 590 Days, 6 Hours, 23 Minutes, 7 seconds.

Bob was working to build out the Hidden Dungeon. Given that each floor was designed for ten people, he had been able to build each floor quite quickly. He was just starting his day and starting the twentieth floor. He'd been working on the Hidden Dungeon steadily, the only interruption being overseeing the training of the next batch of Curators. The Marines who had been instructing had done quite well, and after saying so, he was thanked and advised that they'd be in touch when they needed his services again.

It had left a bad taste in his mouth, reminding him a bit of the rejection letters he'd received while at Fermilab, but he'd done his best to shake that feeling off. He'd managed to catch up to Mike at breakfast a few days earlier, and he was a little surprised to find out that the Marines responsible for selling the copper blocks had held back one percent of each transaction for him. He'd been able to pick up a 1MW hydroelectric generator for sixty thousand dollars, used. It was currently sitting in a room he'd excavated twenty feet away from the living area, just inside the wards.

He hadn't set it up yet, although it seemed fairly simple. Connect the incoming and outgoing pipes, fill with water, set up a ritual to move water at high speed, keep it fed with mana crystals. The part he was going to need to work on was delivering the power throughout the living area. He'd used a miniature turbine in his inventory, and it put out power at one hundred and ten volts. Running the power for his lights had been simple. This unit came with the necessary transformers, but he would still need to wire up breakers.

Bob wasn't an electrician, but he thought that much like everything else in the world, reading the manual would provide most of what he needed, and if there was anything there that he didn't understand, he'd research it. He hadn't been convinced that the Hidden Dungeon would need much power at all until Eddi had mentioned that he'd purchased televisions for every one of the rooms. Bob could see a future where some enterprising person built a small electrical generator into televisions, allowing them to be powered by mana crystals, no fuss, no muss. That day hadn't yet arrived, and Bob wasn't interested enough to dive into a project like that.

He finished excavating the floor on autopilot. Casting the Control Earth ritual was almost instinctual now, and he'd found he could let his mind wander a bit while he cleared a floor. Two floors today, and then tomorrow he'd hunt down Mike, make sure the taxes had been collected, and then confirm everything with Nora.

Bob was hoping to avoid another interaction with the King. It wasn't that he wasn't a fairly nice Dragon, it was rather that he was, not to put too fine a point on it, a Dragon. The further the King stayed away from Glacier Valley, the better, as it prevented any sort of social misunderstandings that might result in incidental incineration.

Kelli fought back a yawn. The days were getting longer, and with his work hours being dawn until dusk, he was feeling the workload. His phone buzzed on his desk, vibrating against the wood. A quick glance showed that he'd received a text message from Harv, asking if he wanted to join them for dinner. He swiped up on the screen and tapped out a quick message.

The phones were a marvel. He'd gotten a bit of a sense of them from when he'd skimmed Bob's memories, but Bob was Bob and hadn't really used his much. Kelli had found himself using his all day, and he was wondering how he'd ever lived without it. For one thing, it told you exactly what time it was, and the time it told you was the same as all the other phones, so people didn't have an excuse for being late anymore. It also let him schedule his day, alerting him when he needed to shift tasks and even reminding him to eat.

Speaking of eating, he checked his text messages and pulled up the message Kevin sent out every night now, outlining the menu for the following day. It looked like they'd brought in something from Glacier Valley, Oxcipine steaks. He'd give them a try. He sent a group message, and wasn't that amazing as well, to Theo and Ayeli, letting them know that he'd be joining Harv, Eli, and Baili for dinner at seven pm, and he'd like an Oxcipine steak with french fries and asparagus on the side.

The tavern had gone all-in on the idea of having people let them know when they were going to eat and what they wanted. It let them turn tables around much more quickly, and it reduced overcrowding.

He turned back to his laptop and resumed entering the totals that Austan had sent him. Thidwell had finally had to institute a tax on delving the Dungeon, although it was a modest five percent, two of which he gave to the Church, one of which he used to pay the staff at the Adventurers Guild, and two percent which he dedicated toward driving the Dungeon ever deeper.

Thidwell had appeared rather surprised at the joy his staff exuded. Kelli was fairly certain that he'd never really noticed that most of the staff worked for room and board, receiving a hundred crystals from Thidwell personally after the spring and fall waves.

He was certainly enjoying the regular pay. He'd reserved one of the corner units in the second apartment building House Crenshaw had constructed, and he'd put together a few ideas with Jimmi in terms of furnishing it beyond the basics that would be provided as part of the lease.

He smiled as he finished entering the numbers into the column, seeing the total immediately populate at the bottom. It had taken him a week or so to trust the machine, but after double-checking column, after column, he had come to accept that machine wasn't wrong. Ever. He might enter a wrong number somewhere, but the machine faithfully added them all up, then further provided the number of crystals to go to the Church, the Guild, and Thidwell.

That task complete, he closed that spreadsheet and resumed his work on another. He had a detailed list of everyone waiting to reincarnate, what paths they planned to take, what Affinity Crystal they would need, and if they would be reincarnating first. They were slowly making progress, day by day. It had been three months since Thidwell had revealed the existence of Affinity Crystals to the other Adventurers Guilds, and once they'd finished pushing a batch of freshers from each guild up to the level cap, they'd started working through the thousands of people who had flocked to Holmstead.

Kelli was proud to mark off the five hundredth row as Heruk Calphan had reached level ten. With a level twenty-five blast spell at his disposal, the man wouldn't have a problem delving any Dungeon he chose, and with the crystals he'd gathered, he'd be able to stay in Holmstead, scheduling delves when they became available.

That had become the new normal. You scheduled a delve in advance, although Austan had started an 'on call' thing, where if someone was late to their delve, they started texting down the list of the people scheduled for that floor. Each person had thirty seconds to respond, and they'd go down the list until they found someone. Once everyone had adjusted to having an accurate clock on them at all times, the program was wildly popular. The Dungeon was running at maximum capacity every single hour of every single day, and the crystals being brought out of it were obscene. He'd spoken to a group that was patiently grinding their summon monster spells up on the seventh floor, and they'd been rather pleased with the delay in gaining a spot on the floor below them. They were almost capped, they said, but it took a long time, delving only one floor down, which had the benefit of stuffing their bags full of crystals.

Crystals that they then spent at the Adventurers Guild, or Nikki's or Joseph's, or any number of merchants. House Crenshaw's decision to ensure housing was available within the walls had endeared them to the populace in general, while House Meer had been very quietly building what Kelli knew was going to be a school. He'd been involved in some of the discussions between Thidwell and the Lady Meer. The plan was to have parents bring their children to the school each day, where they would be taught reading, writing, and mathematics. Older students would learn about the history of Thayland and Greenwold, as well as receiving the basics of all the professions in Holmstead, from gardening to masonry to smithing and everything in between. Lady Meer had stated that she wanted to see a populace full of self-sufficient men and women who were doing work that they found fulfilling.

It wouldn't open for another two months, but Kelli was excited to see how it would work. He was certain that it would once again level the playing field between Meer and Crenshaw in the public eye. He finished entering the latest level and skill updates from last night's delves, and his phone buzzed. He smiled as he saw the reminder that his scheduled delve would start in ten minutes. Closing the laptop, he quickly changed into his armor and headed out through the tavern, intent on the Dungeon. He hoped to finish leveling his skills to twenty-one today.

"I'd thought we'd agreed to just do it, yeah?" Jessica asked her team.

"That was before every bloody armorer in the city had all their stock bought out," Derrick replied grumpily.

"The two shops I visited said they were two weeks out on even having the armor," Sheila added.

"It's pretty clear that we aren't going to get our hands on any enchanted gear here in Harbordeep, and I know there was quite a wait in Holmstead as well, so even though we have the crystals, we're up the bend," Danny sighed and tucked an errant lock behind her ear. "So, we might as well just keep going. If we're safe," she said, "there's no reason we can't hit level sixteen, pick up our portal spells, and start practicing to level them up."

Jake shrugged, "I don't see another option, really."

"We could just keep grinding away," Jessica offered, "it's not like the crystal won't come in handy or anything, you heard how many we'll need for our Dungeon."

Derrick, ever the peacemaker, offered a compromise. "Let's ask one of the Endless to pop into Nikki's and see what the actual wait is. If it's close to the wait here, we might as well buy there, as it'll cost a ton less, yeah? In the meantime, let's start going deeper, slowly."

"I didn't mean we ought to rush to sixteen," Danny agreed, "just no reason to stagnate. We'll cap our skills every step of the way."

Jessica looked around, but there seemed to be a consensus, and it wasn't hers.

"Right then," she said, "let's go over Dhoakes' book then, see what we're in for tomorrow morning."

Bob looked at the number at the bottom of the page and blinked.

"That's a lot of mana crystals," he muttered as he went back over the figures again.

"Well, the Dungeon under the Adventurers Guild is still producing a significant percentage, but as you can see, we've had eight Dungeons at ten floors each producing for a week, at maximum capacity, and GVSS1, as our testbed, is fully functional at twenty-six floors deep and full occupancy, although it's only been completed for the past three days," Mike explained.

Bob shook his head while Mike continued.

"Of course, there are a few teething problems, and if you could come around to the first skyscraper tomorrow, the engineers would like your opinion and advice in regard to a problem they've had with," Mike squinted at his tablet. "Turbulence and steady flows," he finished, "whatever that means."

"Well," Bob sighed, "let's hope that his Majesty is pleased enough with the number that he doesn't feel the urge to investigate, or congratulate, or really anything that would bring him back to Glacier Valley."

Mike nodded in fervent agreement. "This is one of those times when I'd rather not go up against the local powers," he shook his head, "and while I feel like I have the brass convinced, you can never be one hundred percent."

"So, with that out of the way, how have you been?" Mike asked, leaning back away from the table. "I haven't seen you in a week, which feels pretty weird."

"Pretty good," Bob said cautiously, "been working on getting an electrical set up for Eddi. He wants to have a big screen."

Mike sighed and shook his head, "Apparently, they are going to play Lord of the Rings this week."

"What do you want to bet that Eddi ends up in a ringwraith outfit?" Mike asked.

"No bet," Bob replied, "Eddi is a good kid, but he's got a drama streak a mile wide."

"Not a bad public speaker though, from what I hear," Mike shrugged, "I mean yeah, he's just a kid, but he really took that Endless thing and ran with it. It's almost scary how much power and influence he could throw around if he wanted to."

"He already did," Bob smiled, "he's the one who convinced the Endless to give me that initial investment of half a million mana crystals to get Glacier Valley started."

"True," Mike nodded, "I'd almost forgotten that. Still, he's making things better here."

"Something I wanted to ask you," Bob began cautiously, "I was talking to Nora, and I mentioned that it was possible some of the people from Earth might not want to go back. I'd heard a few of the Old Guard talking about it, but I was wondering how widespread that sentiment is?"

Mike grimaced. "Last count, about twelve hundred of the Old Guard, don't want to go back," Mike replied quietly. "Of those, I'd say all of them have friends and family they want to bring over. Assuming they can convince half of those, we're looking at around five or six thousand people."

"From what I've heard, they're planning on pushing to the tier cap, then farming enough crystals to build their own town. They'll have a curator ready to go, and he'll start digging out the Dungeon a few months from now," Mike explained, "a couple of months later, they'll have it finished, and the Old Guard will move over there and start building out a town, one with all the conveniences of home, and none of the headaches."

"I'm not sure how the King will react," Bob muttered, "although I'm inclined to think he'll be happy, especially if they keep up the same pace, delving the Dungeon, and make good on the five percent tax and ten percent lease."

"That's their plan," Mike agreed. "Try to act surprised when they approach you about it."