Monroe

Chapter Two Hundred and Eight. The first Aussie Dungeon.

"Dave, Amanda, Carrie," Bob greeted the group cheerfully.

He was having breakfast with them before taking a portal over to where the Aussies wanted him to help them build a Dungeon.

"Good morning, Bob," Dave smiled.

"I haven't seen you two in a while, how are you doing?" Bob asked.

"Heading to Harbordeep in a couple of days to farm up some Affinity Crystals," Amanda replied, "we're not sure where we'll end up, but it won't be in Glacier Valley."

Bob nodded. While he was proud of what he'd built in Glacier Valley, the truth was that while the Old Guard had been a great start, the arrival of the I Marines had changed the atmosphere of the place considerably, and the other branches had worsened it. It didn't feel like home anymore.

"We thought maybe we'd land with the Aussies, assuming they don't go the same way as GV," Dave added.

"They're in a huge valley on the southeastern coast," Carrie offered, "it's really nice, I'm going to see if the Council will put a tower just outside of it."

Bob waved to Theo, who acknowledged him with a nod.

"You know you can just text your order to taverns number, right?" Carrie asked.

"I did not know that," Bob replied with a frown.

"Yep, they started it a few weeks ago, and Kevin fell in love with the idea," Dave said, "he's even started offering takeout."

"Everyone is ok with it?" Bob asked. He'd been worried about what adopting Earth's technology would do to society on Thayland.

"Sure," Amanda shrugged, "it keeps things moving along at a steady pace, as he can keep track of what tables are occupied by how many people, and it saves time for Theo and Elisa as they don't have to take orders, just deliver them."

"I wouldn't worry about people going all zombie mode with their phones here," Dave advised, "they have better things to do."

"Also, it's just texting and calls so far," Amanda added, "no social media."

"Jack told me the one thing he wants to avoid is bringing that particular cancer to Thayland, although he did lament the absence of Grindr," Dave grinned.

"Honestly, I think people on Thayland have better things to do," Bob said with a sigh.

"Also, the lack of a global or even national networks limits that sort of thing," Amanda shook her head, "regardless, back on topic, you're going to see Jessi this morning?"

"Yep," Bob replied, scooting back a bit as Theo dropped off a big breakfast as well as a huge bowl of diced pork.

Bob moved the bowl to the floor, where he poured Monroe out of his inventory to partake in his feast.

"Not keeping him on the table?" Amanda asked.

"I'm preparing him for when I tier him up," Bob explained, "I expect that a level twenty-five Monroe is going to be as big as, if not substantially larger than, the table."

The table fell silent as all parties contemplated a pony-sized Monroe.

"So," Amanda broke the silence, "how about Dave and I join you on your trip to see the Aussies? We haven't seen Jessi in a while, and we can portal to Harbordeep from where ever they are."

Bob shrugged as he dipped his toast into his egg yolk. "I don't see why not, assuming Carrie doesn't mind?"

"It's your mana crystals I'll be burning," Carrie replied with a grin.

"More the merrier then," Bob agreed. "How is the rest of the crew doing? I know Jack is keeping busy, but how about Tony, Lakisha, Talima, Vera, and Sarah?"

"Tony and Lakisha are having a hard time keeping Talima from delving for too long," Amanda giggled, "It turns out she's got a bit of murderous streak to her that no one ever knew about, and she's turned into a real murderhobo. Her summoned plants are tentacle nightmares."

"Surprisingly enough, Sarah has adapted fairly well, she's delving regularly, and if she isn't necessarily keeping up with us in levels, she's the first one of us to have gotten an inventory enchantment," Dave added.

"Vera bounces around from kitchen to kitchen, figuring out the local ingredients in her never-ending quest to fatten us up," Amanda finished, "overall, everyone is doing well."

Bob stared down into the valley in disbelief.

There were a thousand or more people down there, and it looked like the sheep outnumbered the people three to one.

"So, this wasn't here yesterday," Carrie said slowly.

"Bob!" Jessica's voice called out.

Bob slowly turned his head, spotting the vivacious Aussie as she hurried over to him.

"G'day!" Jessica said happily. "Bloody glad to see you, mate, turns out we need that Dungeon even more than we thought we would!"

Bob closed his eyes and counted out five long, slow breaths. When that failed, eyes still closed, he pulled Monroe out of his inventory and cuddled the big cat to his chest.

"Did I see like, a thousand Australians down there?" Bob asked quietly as he stroked Monroe, firing up the Maine-coon's purr motor.

"Closer to two thousand," Jessica sounded rueful. "We chucked a barbie last night, inviting our families and mates, and one thing led to another, as it does."

"There were six of you, right?" Bob asked, eyes still closed.

"There were," Jessica acknowledged cheerfully.

"How did you get two thousand people together for a bar-b-que?" Amanda asked in amazement.

"They're Australians," Dave chuckled, "I think they have some sort of 'barbie' signal. Sort of like the bat signal, only it means meat and beer for all."

"You're not wrong," Jessica agreed, "you call your mum and dad, they call your aunts and uncles, they call the cousins, and pretty soon you've got the whole damn family showing up with kegs and ribs."

Bob sighed and opened his eyes. "You know what?" He shook his head. "This is not my problem. The Australian government can deal with two thousand of its citizens disappearing. If someone wants to tell them, great."

"Too true," Jessica agreed. "So about that Dungeon."

Bob shook his head, looking at the milling crowd of people. "Where do you want it?"

"It should be in the middle of town, right?" Jessica asked.

"It's going to drain mana from an area within a certain radius, so that would normally make the most sense, unless you're going to end up with a bunch of them, like Glacier Valley," Bob replied.

"Well, we've got a lot of space here," Jessica mused, "the towers in GV, they're good down to level twenty-six, pulling form one square mile, right?"

"Yep," Bob looked across the valley, trying to get a measure of its size.

"How about we start with one like that, just tuck it into this corner, and if we end up doing something different later, this little corner won't matter that much," Jessica suggested.

"Are you looking for the same layout?" Bob asked. "Fifty slots for the first five, then getting larger as you dig it down?"

"That would be brilliant," Jessica agreed, "everyone is feeling a bit crook from last night, but once they've recovered, we're going to start putting together a queue for getting folks rotated through the new Dungeon. Derrick can build out the lower floors once he's had a chance to see the master at work," she finished with a smile.

"I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of curators who are better at this than I am," Bob mumbled as Jessica started down the hill, leaving him to follow.

"Yeah, but you're the best one we know," Dave hooked his arm through Amanda's.

Sliding Monroe into place on the Makres, Bob made his way to the hill, watching as Jessica adroitly navigated a path through the horde of Australians. Upon reaching what might have been the rough center of the gathering, she started cajoling people to clear a space for him to work.

Derrick arrived at about the same time, and if his eyes were a little bloodshot and his clothing disheveled, his smile was brilliant. "G'day, mate!"

"Good morning," Bob replied with a smile of his own. He wasn't going to worry about the sudden appearance of all the Aussies. The appearance of a few dozen cats hadn't gone unnoticed as they'd worked their way to the site for the Dungeon, along with quite a few dogs, and of course, thousands of sheep. He'd even seen some cattle. None of the animals had appeared to have been illtreated, which confirmed in his mind that these Aussies were alright.

"So I've done quite a bit of poking around the Dungeon in Harbordeep with my Mana Sight spell up," Derrick began, "and I feel like I've wrapped my head around a few of the bits and pieces, but it's kind of been like putting together a puzzle without knowing what it's supposed to look like, yeah? I'm just sort of lining up the pieces that fit together."

"It's really not that hard," Bob assured him, "you could probably put something together that works on your own already."

"Maybe," Derrick allowed, "but I'm not just looking to slap something together that sort of works, I'd like to do it proper."

Bob nodded. "You won't be able to cast a five-fold ritual before you hit the tier cap, but you can layer each ritual, it'll just take a few more crystals and it won't be quite as efficient, but it'll get the job done."

"Five-fold ritual?" Derrick asked.

"Yeah, sorry," Bob shrugged, "some of the stuff I've read comes off a bit odd when translated," he hedged. "A five-fold ritual is when you cast the Control Earth, Control Air, Control Water, Control Fire, and Mana Shaping all at the same time, linking them together and balancing the mana draw from each of the Elemental rituals through the Shadowmancy ritual."

"You can do that?" Derrick asked, his eyes wide.

"You've been doing a two intelligence, two wisdom, one endurance attribute allocation, right?" Bob asked.

"Yep," Derrick agreed.

"You've noticed that while you aren't any smarter, or any wiser, your ability to recall events in detail has greatly increased, as has the speed with which you process information, right?"

"Too right," Derrick's grin widened, "bit handy, that."

"Once you're capped and fully geared, you'll be able to work up to five rituals at once, although," Bob grimaced, "it does come with a hell of a headache."

"I don't really understand," Jessica frowned, "I know you said it would take five thousand mana crystals, but I thought rituals were just a hundred mana crystals and a hundred seconds?"

"That," Bob began, "is the right question." He noticed that there were maybe fifty or so people gathered around, and they all appeared to be listening intently. He pushed his mana into a persistent effect control air spell that would allow his voice to carry further.

"What I've discovered is that there are two different kinds of ritual magic," Bob explained. "Your basic 'make this effect permanent' ritual, which is as advertised, and costs one hundred mana crystals and requires one hundred seconds to cast. Then there is Ritualmagic," Bob stressed the word. "The second type is wildly different from the first. You aren't just pulling the mana from mana crystals and flowing it through the pattern for the System Spell, you're building the pattern with the mana from the ground up, as it were. It requires you to understand how the spell interacts with the active and latent mana around it as you build the pattern. It takes longer and requires a lot more mana crystals, but the end result is more. You can't cast five rituals for a hundred crystals each and expect them to work together. They might exist in the same space, but the effects will be separate."

"So doing it on the cheap is like drawing a picture on in the sand, and doing it the hard way is like laying out a mosaic using stones?"

Bob had to turn around to see who had asked the question. The man was middle-aged, with swarthy skin and a heavy stubble darkening his face. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt that had long ago taken on the color of the dusty tan dirt that clung to it, while a wide-brimmed hat shaded his eyes.

"An excellent analogy," Bob smiled.

"Can anyone learn how to do this sort of thing, or is it one of those things you need a knack for?" The man asked.

"I think it's both?" Bob replied, "I mean, any engineer can build a structure that will stand the test of time, but it took someone special to build the Sydney Opera House, right?"

There was a murmur of approval from the crowd, and the man nodded slowly. "Not much of an architect myself," he took off his hat and wiped his brow, revealing black hair streaked with silver, "my fences have always been as straight as nature would allow, but I've always felt more drawn to gardens and my crops."

"The Divine School of Plant is likely to be where you shine," Bob suggested.

"Little Jessi mentioned that," the man replied, drawing a groan from Jessica. "Said you've gotta pray to get Divine magic?"

"You'll have to accept a Divine Blessing from a god, yes," Bob acknowledged, "but we're getting a bit off task. Jessica and her friends can answer most of your questions, but none of them really matter until we have this Dungeon built and operating so you can level up."

He turned back to Derrick as he pulled out a roll of copper wire from his inventory. "When you're casting real rituals, I've been told to use copper wire to lay them out," he explained, "and I haven't taken the time to test other materials. Put up your Mana Sight as a persistent effect, and watch as I lay out the patterns for the rituals."

"Everyone clear the area, you can watch from fifty or so feet away, any closer and the impact you have on the mana flows will reduce the efficiency of the pattern we're designing," Bob called out as he started laying out the copper wire, calling Derrick's attention to the ambient and latent mana, demonstrating how to take into account the variations.

The crowd pulled back but grew in numbers until there were hundreds of people watching as Bob, assisted by Derrick, slowly laid the copper wire down. It took the better part of two hours, as Bob explained how the rituals would interact with one another and where and why changes had to be made in the patterns to accommodate the others.

Finally, the ritual was ready.

"This is going to take a while," Bob warned everyone, "likely about five hours. Words cannot adequately express how important it is that I'm not interrupted while I'm casting this, as the consequences would be best described as catastrophic for everyone in the valley."

Bob walked to the center of the pattern and sat down, careful to remain in the exact center of the ritual. He pulled a bag with five thousand mana crystals out of his inventory and began to pull the mana through them, mentally guiding the energy throughout the patterns he'd laid out.

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