Monroe

Chapter Two Hundred and Thirteen. Adding to the Guard.

Bob walked into the Adventurers Guild in Glacier Valley with a smile on his face. He'd wound up playing a barbarian in a pickup D&D game, and he'd had a great time. Everyone seemed to be predisposed to legitimately like him, and even after a few hours of exposure to actual Bob, rather than just the Legend of Bob, they seemed to like him more.

It was equal parts surprising and refreshing.

"Bob!" Mike called from across the room, waving him over. Bob caught Talima's eyes as she poked her head around the door leading into the kitchen, and they both nodded.

He sat down across from Mike, sliding Monroe off his Makres with the customary clicks before pouring him into the center of the table, where the super-sized kitty sprawled out, unwilling to move after suffering that indignity.

"Good morning Monroe," Mike offered a tentative head rub, which Monroe accepted with the grace and poise inherent to his divine nature.

"How's Glacier Valley?" Bob asked as he reached out to deliver a bit of light kitty worship in accordance with the divine mandate of kitty supplication.

"Well, we've pushed all forty Dungeons down to the twenty-sixth floor," Mike reported, "and now we're looking to find a decent harbor somewhere to the south, as the Navy is not leaving any ships behind."

"I can see that," Bob replied thoughtfully. An aircraft carrier was practically a floating city, with something along the lines of a five thousand person crew.

"Every branch is rushing their people through the Dungeons," Mike sighed, "and while having a growing number of people at the tier cap is great, there have been casualties."

Bob paused his petting for a moment, then forced himself to resume. "I take it they ignored the rules?" Bob asked.

"Pretty much," Mike nodded with a grimace, "from what I've been able to find out, they had all skipped leveling their auxiliary support skills, and when things went wrong, they couldn't recover."

Bob shook his head. "I'd ask how many, but honestly," he took another deep breath, "it isn't my problem or my responsibility. I made certain to tell everyone the rules, and the military shoved me out, so it's not my fault."

"You're damn right it's not," Mike agreed, "which leads into another conversation I need to have with you."

Bob tensed. His morning had been going so well.

"I've been gradually cut out of meetings as each branch finds their footing here," Mike began, "and frankly I've not only been made to feel, but in one instance, I was outright told, that while they appreciate what I've done, if I'm not going to re-up, I should step aside."

"I sort of feel like the proper response is 'Those ungrateful cocksuckers,'" Bob tried.

"That's pretty much how I felt about it," Mike agreed with a grin. "So when Waters came to me and told me that pretty much the entire Old Guard wants to set up a Dungeon of their own, where we can focus on using the crystals to bring over more veterans and make them whole, I said yes."

Bob nodded. He'd regenerated every single member of the Old Guard, and if he didn't know them all by name, or many of them by name, or a lot of them at all, they all seemed to appreciate what he'd done, and moreover, they'd all volunteered for project 'Save Humanity.'

"So, you need me to build out a Dungeon?" Bob guessed.

"Also another healing marathon," Mike confirmed. "We've got a place picked out, and we've got a dozen guys who are willing to go down the Curator path, but we need you to get us started."

Bob nodded slowly. "You guys have some Mana Crystals, right?" Bob asked.

"We do, although nowhere near enough, but aside from delving for them, I'm going to ask Eddi if the Endless can float us a couple hundred thousand," Mike replied.

"Those kids deserve a goddamn statue and a place in the history books," Bob muttered as Talima bustled out with Monroe's breakfast.

She had his as well, but Bob was well aware that of the two of them, Monroe took precedence.

"You aren't wrong," Mike coughed, a look of embarrassment crossing his face.

"What?" Bob asked.

"Some of the guys want to add a couple of verses to The Halls of Montezuma," Mike shrugged, then with a glance to see that no one was around, he quietly sang.

"When the end of times arrived

Not fire or ice, but monsters rising tall

It was Bob who made sure we survived

While the Endless gave their all."

"It's a work in progress," he muttered.

Bob ate his breakfast in silence. He didn't have anything to add to that.

"Anyway," Mike continued after they'd cleared their plates, "I was hoping you were clear for the next couple of days, if you could drop the first floor, then tomorrow, we can start bringing people over."

"Well, aside from delving for crystals, I don't have a whole lot on my plate," Bob replied thoughtfully. He wasn't quite ready to start practicing systemless ritual casting, as he needed to recruit Austan for that experiment. He'd made enough progress on the Arcane Depths front that a few days building out a Dungeon and throwing some regenerate rituals wouldn't put him behind.

Mike grinned broadly, and Bob thought he could see a hint of relief on his features.

"I knew we could count on you," Mike stood and gestured towards the door. "No reason not to get started straight away, right?"

"Time to put in the work," Bob agreed as he scooped up Monroe.

"Waters, it's not that I don't believe you, I mean I can see it with my own eyes, but really? A fuckin' wizard fixed you up?"

Eric sighed and, not for the first time, wished Earth wasn't a dead zone, mana wise. A show of magic would go a long way towards herding the veterans.

"Alverez," Eric yelled as he spotted him over the crowd, "we got everyone here?"

Juan's response was drowned out by the chatter of five hundred voices, but he caught the move-out signal loud and clear.

"Alright, on me!" Eric yelled before turning and finishing the ritual he'd been holding for the past ten minutes. A portal twisted open, gold and amber swirling together in the center but solid at the edges.

He darted through the portal, moving off to the side as he continued pulling mana from the sack of crystals in his hand. Learning how to hold a ritual and how to maintain it had been one of the harder things he'd ever had to do, especially when moving or speaking at the same time. It required him to concentrate on two things at once.

A stream of marines flowed through the portal, first those on gurneys, then those in wheelchairs, then those who could walk under their own power.

It took less than five minutes, but he was sweating in the cold evening air as he strove to keep the portal open. As soon as Juan was through and he got the nod, he dropped the spell, panting.

"Gentlemen!" Eric could hear Sergeant Hanson's voice booming over the crowd. "Please remain where you are. The tall fellow with the cat on his shoulders will be coming to you, one by one, to make you whole."

He grinned. He knew that Bob wouldn't let them down. He straightened up as he caught his breath and walked around to the front just in time to hear Bob say, "I'm going to put my hand on your shoulder for one hundred seconds. Please don't hurt me."

Eric shook his head as he moved to stand beside Sergeant Hanson. He understood how tiers and levels worked now, and he was fully aware that no matter how skilled, a level zero marine wouldn't be able to hurt Bob. Bob knew that too, which meant that when he'd said that to Eric, it was meant to put him at ease and make him feel in control.

He often wondered just how much of what Bob said and did was a front. The guy wasn't good with people, like, at all, but every now and then, he'd do something that made you wonder.

As the first man's legs and arm grew back, Eric heard the men gasp in amazement. "Same deal," Bob said to the next man, having already moved on, "hand on shoulder, one hundred seconds, no hurting Bob."

He glanced over at Hason, and they shared a savage grin. This was what it was all about.

Jason groaned as he crawled into his bath.

It had been a week, and every day he was just a little bit more exhausted at the end. He was craving coffee, any kind of caffeine, really. The hot bath did a lot to wake him up, but it didn't keep him going.

If the past several days proved their pattern, Martin, one of the SAS troopers, would be knocking at his door in a quarter of an hour, and he'd be headed back to the Dungeon for another eight hours of watching over The Queen.

Which was rather more difficult than he'd thought it would be after he'd convinced her that the path of the Endless Swarm was the most powerful path for destroying monsters. Something he'd had to prove to her mathematically. Surely she would let her summons do the work for her, just like every other summoner, right?

No, no, she would not. The Queen had been an avid fencer in her youth and had favored the Claymore that her great-great-grandfather had used, and she wouldn't be dissuaded from fighting in melee. "We must fight in the vanguard," she had said, "we have generals who are far better strategists than we are, but the royal banner at the fore will strengthen all who follow us."

It wasn't that she was bad at melee combat, quite the opposite, in fact. She was, to Jason's untrained eye, rather talented, an opinion confirmed by the SAS troopers who fought alongside her.

It was that she didn't stop or slow down, darting from monster to monster like a woman possessed. Jason thought she was awfully trusting of his healing skills, but then again, there were six SAS troopers to whom he would answer if he weren't attentive enough.

He'd wanted to just keep an effect over time heal going on her, but apparently, that was severely detrimental to her experience gain and the coalescence rate of Mana Crystals, so he was instead forced to hit her with a healing blast between fights.

After they were done delving for the day, The Queen would grill him on all aspects of the System, often asking theoretical questions regarding skills that he didn't know the answers to. He would then be expected to find those answers in time for the next evening's discussions. Huron had been kind enough to grant him access to the Chruch's library after he'd spotted Jason running back from Kathaleens for the third day in a row.

The Queen also spent an hour each evening with Huron, and Jason had a sneaking suspicion that she intended to have her own holy order of paladins or something along those lines.

He shook his head and climbed out of the tub, toweling off as he contemplated the day ahead of him. She was leveling as melee warrior, having taken the Melee skill at level six and a specialization at level seven. She kept her summons out as a persistent effect, insisting that the spell would level just fine that way. Once she'd capped her skills today, he knew she intended to level up and take the Armor skill.

He sighed as he shrugged into his own armor. That, at least, would help soak some of the damage, easing the constant terror of being responsible for keeping the bloody Queen alive.

The Queen had been ecstatic when Huron had gifted her with an inventory of her own two days ago, as it saved her a quarter of an hour each day that had been spent putting on and taking off her armor. Huron had been deeply interested in the design of her armor, and she'd had Jason return to Buckingham Palace, where he watched as a pair of SAS men absconded with a set meant for a man, which she then gifted to the High Priest.

He had hoped to find some support from the SAS in terms of perhaps having The Queen slow down and level more safely, but he'd instead discovered that to a man, they were desperately eager to see the Queen reach as high of a level as possible. Their logic was that the higher level the Queen was, the more difficult it would be for anything to hurt her.

Jason couldn't fault the logic, but he was beginning to feel like he'd been caught up in some sort of fever dream. He'd taken a few hours off, cutting into his sleep schedule, to visit his friends and had discovered them living it up in an amazing Adventurers Guild that they'd built, with a spa on the roof.

He heard the knock on his door and squared his shoulders. He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Ultimately, all that mattered was ensuring the Queen's safety, and if that job was difficult, what did it matter? He was an Englishman, and any harm that sought his Queen would find him first.

"Do you think it'll work?" Eli asked doubtfully.

"It worked for that Johnson fellow and Carol-Ann," Harv shrugged. "We don't really have a lot of people to test it on."

"From what I can tell, the people who are suffering aren't going to bite the crystal; they'll be grateful for a chance, no matter how small," he continued.

"Alright, well, soonest started then," Eli agreed.

Harv nodded and tugged at the noose around his neck. Tie, he thought to himself, it's a tie, and this is a suit. He shrugged uncomfortably and picked up the briefcase at his feet and followed Eli out of the tavern, looking around the plaza for their transport.

He spotted Jack lounging on a bench in front of the Mausoleum, chatting with a pretty dark-haired woman.

Jack spotted them and stood up, leaning over to kiss the girl's cheek, before walking towards them with a smile.

"Are you two ready?" Jack asked with a grin.

"We are," Harv confirmed nervously.

"Alright, let's go make history," Jack said with a smile as he gestured, and a portal appeared behind him. "After you," he bowed.

Harv squared his shoulders and stepped through the portal, with Eli at his side and Jack right behind them.