Monroe

Freshly showered and shaved, Bob looked in the mirror.

Today was the day. Level six of the Dungeon. Today he would start to make real progress towards rescuing Monroe. He'd decided that he would gather crystals, even past the point that Summon Monster reached level six. He couldn't help but worry that the increased mana costs of his spells would also appear in his ritual, and he wanted to make sure he had twice the crystals needed, just in case.

He would be comfortable at eight hundred crystals. That would cover the ritual at two hundred crystals, a Dungeon token at two hundred crystals, and then another two hundred crystals to repay his debts, and leave him with enough money to keep delving into the Dungeon.

He hadn't needed to have his armor cleaned after yesterday's delve, having done nothing but lean on his staff and regenerate mana while Jake plowed through the rats, so he buckled himself into it, and headed to the tavern.

Elli and Harv weren't there yet, so he sat down at a table and watched as Bailli approached.

"Bailli," Bob said, trying to speak to her before she asked about breakfast and spun away, as was her customer, "I've been meaning to ask, just how many days a week and what hours do you work?"

Bailli's face froze, her natural smile taking on a wooden cast. "When I'm not here, I'm with my betrothed," she said icily.

"No, I didn't mean anything like that," Bob responded quickly, "I'm wondering how exactly the economy around here works. You're always here, from breakfast until late evening - is that a normal schedule for people here? Do you get days off?"

"Oh," Bailli said warily, "well, I work six out of seven days, as you said, from breakfast until after dinner, twelve hours. I'm working as a server," she went on as the ice melted from her tone, "because I plan to be a Mage, and if you work for the guild as a server, or a cook, or stableman, or cleaning staff for six months, the Guild will shepherd you through levels six and seven."

Bob nodded and spoke hastily, not wanting to lose this opportunity to talk to someone who wasn't an Adventurer, at least not yet. He had a feeling that Adventurers had a skewed perception of economics. "If you weren't working towards being shepherded, how much would you expect to be paid for a day's work?"

"A round and a half," Bailli replied, "The guild pays better than most places, although they rarely have to - I waited a year and a half for this position to open up. Now, I've got hungry Adventurers to feed, so what will it be?"

"Breakfast for me," said Bob, and with a nod, Bailli whirled about and headed to another table to get their order as well.

He pondered the ramifications of that conversation. The Thayland calendar was based on their lunar cycle, which was quite a bit longer than Earth's at thirty-five days. Ten months in their calendar. So, Bailli was effectively paying, through her labor, three hundred and fifteen rounds to be shepherded through levels six and seven. He sighed as he tallied up his mental total of 'Crystals Bob Needs to Acquire'.

He was pulled from his thoughts by Elli and Harv thudding down into their chairs.

"Good morning Bob!" said Harv enthusiastically, while Elli merely nodded and glanced about bleary-eyed.

Bob tried out a smile and responded, "Indeed, because this morning I start gathering crystals."

Harv smiled and nodded, Elli merely nodded, and Bailli arrived with a steaming plate of eggs and bacon, and three mugs.

As Harv and Elli both indicated their preference for breakfast, Bob started eating. When he got back home, he was going to find a job that paid enough that he could eat like a human being. The simple meals served at the Guild had spoiled him, and while he could manage for a little while when he got back, he didn't want to keep on eating ramen and spaghetti.

Of course, he mused, if he managed to snag spells or skills that had more utility than killing monsters, he might not have to work too hard to find a job. While the ability to summon a UtahRaptor would undoubtedly be handy should someone ever attempt to mug him again, Bob couldn't see a good, subtle, way to make money off that spell.

"Enjoying that bacon?" Harv asked with a grin.

Bob looked down at the slice of bacon he was eating. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he responded, "It's bacon..."

"Yep, but today you'll encounter the source," Harv laughed.

"Level six is boars," Elli explained, his eyes now fully open and demeanor much more aware.

"What is the level like?" Bob asked.

"Like struggling through thick underbrush," Elli answered.

"It tends to be a fairly well-visited level," Harv said, "freshly pathed Adventurers often stay there for quite a while, leveling up their schools and skills, while saving up crystals for equipment."

Elli nodded and swallowed a mouthful of scrambled eggs before speaking, "You'll likely run into some other Adventurers down there, but don't worry, it's a little bit like the third level, in that you fight through the environment to find a decent spot, and then fight the boars as they come."

Bob nodded, then asked, "Am I going to need light down there?"

Harv shook his head and answered, "A good question, and one I'm glad you asked, but no, level six is illuminated."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bob made it a point to say "Good morning," to Austan as they headed to the Gate. He seemed like a good person, and Harv and Elli's comments about him producing the light orbs at cost was telling.

He followed Harv and Elli through the Gate, and as promised found himself what looked for all the world like a dense forest of short trees and brambles. A dull light appeared to filter through the trees, providing enough light to fight, but not enough to avoid catching yourself on the brambles.

Bob heard voices shouting up ahead and to the left, along with the angry squealing of a pissed off boar.

Harv and Elli guided him through the brambles to the right for about sixty feet, until they opened up into a small clearing.

"Go ahead and get set up here," Elli said, pointing to the far end of the clearing, "We'll push back a little bit into the brambles - the boars won't come near you if we are too close, they can sense the level difference, and at level ten we're a bit too high for them to want to tangle with."

Bob filed that information under his "Good to Know" folder. "I meant to ask," he said, "given the difference in cost, why doesn't everyone just use lanterns and oil as opposed to light orbs?"

Elli looked guilty as he said, "Yeah, we meant to talk to you about that," he said, "see, we've been level eight for a long time, going on a year and a half, and for us, a crystal fuels the lamp for better than an hour and half."

Harv also looked guilty as he continued, "So to us, that eight-hour stretch you logged was like five maybe six crystals. We didn't take into account that you were using level one crystals, not level eights."

"But to answer your question," Elli stepped in, "there are several levels where there are pockets of marsh gas that have a nasty habit of exploding if you use a lantern," he leveled a withering glance at Harv, "or throw fireballs around."

Bob winced. Ok. Methane pockets made sense. No lanterns on those levels.

"Well, I'll certainly earn some crystals today," he said.

"Starting right about now!" yelled Elli as Bob heard an angry grunt from off to his right, and turned to see a massive boar hurtling at him.

He quickly stepped behind one of the small trees that dotted the clearing, at the same time summoning Jake. He moved just in time, as the boar hurtled by him before staggering to a stop and turning to face him.

"Don't let them charge you!" Harv yelled encouragingly.

"Not planning on it," Bob muttered. The boar was six feet long, three feet wide, and four feet at its massive fore shoulders. It had eight-inch long tusks that were every bit as frightening as Jake's talons.

He slid back around the tree as he summoned another Jake, hoping to distract the boar and keep it from charging him again. He didn't have a lot of confidence that the tree would survive the impact if the boar charged it, or that he wouldn't suffer collateral damage.

His first Jake moved to intercept the boar, dashing forward to try to knock it over and rend it with his talons. This action did not succeed as the boar was significantly heavier than Jake, although it did serve to draw the boar's attention away from Bob.

Bob's eyes widened as he watched the boar tear a massive gash in Jake's flank. The UtahRaptor responded in kind, but it was easy to see that the boar would only need two hits to bring down Jake, whereas Jake would need six or even seven hits to take down the boar.

He summoned a third UtahRaptor and sent it after the boar, as his first was dealt a fatal blow. Now two Jakes dashed in, one from each side, and raked at the boar with their deadly sickle-shaped talons. The boar spun to the right and slashed at it with its tusks, tearing open a terrible wound.

Bob brought out another Jake, and mentally ordered the wounded UtahRaptor to dash away, while the other two attacked it.

The maneuver worked, as the boar made to chase the wounded Jake, but then turned to slash at an unwounded UtahRaptor

Slice and run, slice, and run. Bob kept his Jakes moving in that pattern for another three seconds, summoning another three raptors, and losing two before the boar gasped its last and fell to the churned, bloodied earth.

He walked over to the boar, being careful to churn out a Jake every other second, and nudged it with his foot.

He looked over to Elli and Harv, who were, for all intents and purposes, hiding in the bushes.

"Where is the crystal?" he called.

"If it had one, it'll fall to the ground when it dissipates," Harv said.

"Shame you don't have the time to learn how to field dress that," said Elli in a regretful tone, "that is a lot of bacon that is about to disappear."

"Wait, what do you mean "If it had one"?" Bob asked.

He heard a grunt and a squeal from behind him and realized that this conversation would have to be put on hold.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bob was sweating and quietly swearing to himself as he closed the distance to Elli and Harv.

Level six was fucking hard. The boars came every thirty seconds if he maintained his position. If he made the mistake of moving more than ten feet in any direction, they came sooner.

He'd figured out that he had to stay in a relatively small area, or else he'd be fighting two at once. Before Bob had mapped out that area, he'd ended up with three, and for the first time, Harv and Elli had to step in.

He'd narrowly avoided being skewered, and Harv had helpfully raised an earthen wall that forced the boar to go around it, buying him time to finish of the first boar before tackling the second and third.

He'd spent two hours fighting boars, and he was heartily sick of it. He averaged one kill every thirty seconds, and had at current, racked up two hundred and forty-eight boars total. For his efforts, he'd gained two experience points for each boar, which ranked well under the rats on level five in terms of experience gained, and twenty crystals.

Harv had explained to him, between bouts of battling boars, that crystals formed somewhere between one in ten and one in twenty monsters.

Bob had vented his rage at this information on furious combat.

Somehow, he had expected that every monster would provide a crystal. As he mentally recalled his conversations on this topic, which weren't many, he realized two things. First, no one had ever said that he would receive a crystal for every monster killed. Second, his ability to recall his conversations was phenomenal.

Harv had something to say in regard to that as well. Apparently, as your intelligence increased, your ability to recall information and experiences increased as well. Wisdom increased the speed at which you thought, allowing you more time to make decisions in stressful or dangerous situations.

Bob could also recall having made a mental note to ask Kelli what exactly intelligence and wisdom did, and then not following up on it.

Twenty crystals. Assuming he was able to do three delves a day, for two hours each, he'd only gain sixty crystals a day. He ground his teeth in frustration. Five more days would put him at only three hundred crystals, which would let him level to six, but wouldn't leave him with enough to summon Monroe if he planned to hit seven and have the buffer he suspected he'd need due to his damaged matrix.

Leaning on his staff, he broached the subject with Elli and Harv.

"I know you said the guidelines are for two hours a day when you're fighting on a level that is one higher than you are," he started, "but at this rate, I'm not going to have the crystals or the levels I need before I run out of time."

Harv and Elli exchanged a glance. "How long are suggesting you stay?" Elli asked.

"Three hours, four delves a day," Bob answered desperately.

Down here on level six, Bob knew that he needed Elli and Harv. If things went badly for him down here, he was done. Those boars could kill him if he made mistakes. He might recover from one screwup, but he'd seen that if made two mistakes, as when he'd ended up with three boars, he wouldn't survive.

"We can do that," Elli said, "however, after you get your friend back, you're done. No delves for a week, then you limit yourself to one delve a day."

Harv nodded and added, "Delving too long and too often... it becomes an addiction, something to do with the way your mana intermingles with the mana in the Dungeon. We've lost friends to it. So we'll do this, but then you follow the guidelines, by the verse. Deal?"

Bob nodded. He could live with that. Once he had Monroe, it didn't matter how slowly everything else progressed.

"Deal."