Monroe

Chapter Eight. Tick, Tock.

"Ok," Bob said as he considered the revelation that people could live for a stupidly long time here, "So I'm seeing how attributes work, and I definitely want to know what Wisdom and Intelligence do."

"But," he tried and failed to stifle a yawn, "I've been up since dawn, and I hiked up and down a couple of mountains and then a couple of miles into town, and to top it off I had an entire fucking language stuffed into my skull."

"I'm worn out. Any chance you can wrangle up that bed Thidwell suggested was available?" He asked.

Kelli nodded and stood up.

Bob staggered to his feet and followed him towards a door directly across from the bar and kitchen, which lead to a hallway and a series of doors.

Each of the doors had a crystal or glass sphere mounted above it which was either illuminated blue, or dark. Kelli guided him to the nearest non-illuminated door and handed him a crystal, indicating a slot in the door frame.

"Just drop in a crystal and push the door open. The door will unlock, and you'll find a token you can use in place of the crystal to get back in," Kelli said.

Bob did as instructed, noting that the crystal above the door turned blue once he had dropped the coin in the slot.

He walked inside and found a fairly simple room. A bed on one side, and a sink, toilet, and tub on the other.

He turned and found Kelli leaning on the door frame.

"Get some sleep, I'll find you in the tavern tomorrow morning," Kelli said, and as he turned and left the door closed behind him.

Bob considered the bed. It looked comfortable. 'Of course, when you've been bedding down in pine needles for a couple of nights, the bar isn't that high,' he mused.

He then considered the bathtub. He shuddered as he considered how grimy he must be at this point. He walked over, and noticed a single spigot, with a lever to open it, and a short bar mounted vertically behind the spigot, which held a slide that went from blue at the bottom to red at the top.

He turned on the spigot and slid the bar about halfway between the midpoint between blue and red, and the top. He held his hand under the water and smiled. Just about perfect.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

'It was amazing what a good meal, a hot bath, and a good night's sleep could do for you,' mused Bob as he settled into a corner booth in the tavern.

The only thing that had been missing was soap, so he had made do by simply scrubbing himself raw with the pumice stone provided with the tub.

He scratched the stubble along his chin and considered that he could do with a razor as well.

'Focus,' he told himself.

This was day five. He needed to figure out this attribute, path, and skill shit in a right fucking hurry. Monroe only had another two weeks or so.

A figure appeared to his right, and Bob looked up to find Bailli smiling down at him.

"Would you like breakfast or general fare?" she asked.

"Breakfast," Bob replied, unsure of the difference but not particularly caring. Food was food, and likely to be better than the pasta, ramen, and eggs he normally lived on.

Bailli nodded and moved purposefully towards the kitchen.

Bob fell back into his thoughts.

'Ok, so I need to somehow get back. It seems pretty obvious that these people can't send me back, or they wouldn't be bothering to tell me everything about their society, they'd just open up a wormhole and chuck me through,' he mused.

'I've got enough of these shards to hit level five, which gives me a path bonus which sets me on my path? Lets me choose my path? I'll have to clarify how that works.'

'Kelli said they document the paths, which sound an awful lot like classes from D&D to me, so I need to ask if they have one that specializes in traveling between dimensions, and if not, what class would be best suited for it.'

Bob sighed and rubbed his temples. 'I don't have a ton of information to go off of, but it doesn't seem like swordsmen are cutting tunnels into other dimensions, so I'm probably going to be a Wizard of some sort.'

Bob froze. "Are you an idiot Bob?" he muttered, then answered himself, "Why yes, I am an idiot."

'Help Magic' he mentally projected.

System Help Magic Magic is the manipulation of Mana through either mental projection, verbal articulation, somatic gestures, or all three.

'Ok,' he thought, 'as it says on the tin, Magic is Magic.'

'Help Dimensional Travel'

System Help Dimensional Travel Dimensional Travel can be unlocked by having the following schools and skills: Magical School Dimension, Dimension Skill Teleport, Dimension Skill Portal, Dimension Skill Spatial Distortion, Dimension Skill Spatial Reinforcement, Magical School Divination, Divination Skill Scry, Divination Skill Premonition. Dimensional Travel, when active, allows the user to freely travel between Dimensions as long as the Skill is maintained. No knowledge of the destination is required, the skill will only take the Dimensional Traveler to Dimensions where they are able to survive in the natural environment. This skill requires a mana expenditure of the user's tier, multiplied by the user's skill level. Dimensional Travel is an innate or granted skill belonging to the following paths: Plane Walker, Emissary, Pontifex, Archmage, and Well of Souls.

'Fuck,' Bob thought. 'Eight skills to get to Dimensional Travel, and one to buy it. I only get five points.'

'Help Plane Walker'

System Help Plane Walker Path The Plane Walker Path can be obtained by having the following Magical Schools and Skills: Magical School Elemental Fire, Elemental Fire Skill Body of Fire, Magical School Elemental Water, Elemental Water Skill Body of Water, Magical School Elemental Air, Elemental Air Skill Body of Air, Magical School Elemental Earth, Elemental Earth Skill Body of Earth, Magical School Invocation, Invocation Skill Gate, Invocation Skill Planar Adaptation. The Plane Walker Path increases all elemental resistances by one per level and provides one additional skill point per level that can only be used in the Magical Schools of Elemental Air, Water, Fire, Earth, and the Magical School Invocation. Upon attaining level ten and every five levels thereafter a Plane Walker must select a Magical School of Elemental Air, Fire, Water, or Earth, which will receive a ten percent increase in power. Each school can only be chosen once. Upon reaching level twenty-five, a Plane Walker gains the Skill Dimensional Travel.

"What the actual fuck?" Bob exclaimed as he stared at the screen.

"Stars and stones but hearing you talk is just weird," said a voice immediately to his right.

Bob jerked back and twisted to face the speaker, startled out of his reverie.

"I mean, we are obviously speaking Thaylan, and it isn't like you have an accent or anything, but the way you put the words together..." Kelli trailed off.

Bob looked at Kelli and said, "Yeah, me foreigner, me talk funny. Whatever. I need to talk to you about skills and paths."

Kelli let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a sigh and said, "Everyone learned all of this as we grew up, it's going to take a bit of time to bring you up to a common level of knowledge, and -"

Bob raised his hand and cut Kelli off, "Kelli, I appreciate what you're doing for me, but you need to understand that I don't have time. More accurately, Monroe doesn't have time. I've got two weeks. Now, let me ask you, how fast can I increase my level after level five?"

Kelli raised his hands and replied, "After level five, you have to kill level six mana spawned creatures to gain a usable crystal. Once you are level six, you are going after level sevens, and so on. You need one hundred level six crystals to reach level six, one hundred level sevens to reach level seven, I'm sure you can see the pattern. Past level ten mana's requirements are even more strict. You'll need two hundred of each. From fifteen to twenty it takes four hundred. From twenty to twenty-five takes eight hundred. And to tier up it takes sixteen thousand level twenty-six or higher crystals."

Bob was doing the math before he finished speaking. Level nine to have the skill points. So one hundred crystals, six through ten. He'd killed three hundred and forty-seven rats in two days. Surely he could kill four hundred... whatever was level six through ten in a week or so.

"Bob, you need to really hear me," Kelli said, snapping him back into reality.

"It takes people who are dedicated, and I mean really, well and truly dedicated, a couple of hours a day, every single day, a week to gain a level, and once they start to reach the higher levels," Kelli shook his head, "it took me four years to reach level nine," Kelli said with quiet seriousness, holding eye contact with Bob.

"I can guess what you're thinking. You're thinking that you killed hundreds of rats in two days," Kelli went on, still holding Bob's gaze, "But what you are missing is that you had A Child's Protection. Otherwise, you would have died, probably after the first three rats," Kelli concluded.

"There has to be -" Bob began, and this time it was Kelli who interrupted.

"Let me break this down for you, mathematically as that seems to work well for you. Assuming you are fighting a creature one level higher than you, depending on the circumstances you will use a tenth of your mana or stamina or both. You will also take a quarter of your health in damage. All this is assuming you are well equipped and fighting in a favorable environment," Kelli drew in a deep breath and continued, "Now your stamina and mana you can gain back fairly quickly, but your health is another story - you're either going to need a healing skill, which will cost you two points, or you'll need a healing item, which will require crystals to operate, forcing you to surrender the very crystals you're risking death for to keep on risking death."

Bob waited, his focus still on Kelli.

Kelli nodded and went on, "There are people who prefer to fight alone, and they can be very successful, but they have very specific paths and builds, and it takes them a bit longer than those who form parties."

Kelli leaned back a bit and switched his gaze to Bailli who was approaching with her tray.

"Why don't we take a moment, have some breakfast, and I'll try to give you the basics and work out a plan for you?" Kelli said as his brown eyes locked onto a plate piled high with what appeared to be scrambled eggs.

Bob closed his eyes and nodded slowly. 'Focus,' he thought. 'One thing at a time. I can't get to Monroe if I'm dead, and while it's a bit blurry, I do remember those rat bites hurting, a lot.'

He opened his eyes and called out "Thank you," to Bailli's retreating back.

He picked up his fork and tried a bite. It certainly tasted like scrambled eggs.

Kelli was watching him carefully while working on demolishing his own plate of eggs.

They ate in silence, and after a few minutes of determined chewing, slid their empty plates to the side.

"Ok," said Bob calmly. "Is it possible for me to spend my five skill points and gain the necessary skills to get home?" he asked.

Kelli ran a hand through his short, dark hair. "Maybe?" He said, "look, there is a lot you don't know yet, so let me explain a bit. Take the spell Teleport for example. It has a base range of your magical power, which is your Intelligence and Wisdom attributes added together and then cut in half. So, for the sake of argument, let's just say ten, which would be ten feet."

Kelli raised a finger and continued, "But, that is the teleport spell at the base level. Spells can level, up to your maximum level. If you have increased your teleport spell to the highest level possible, it increases your teleport range by ten percent per level, or a total of two and a half times, making your range thirty-five feet. Now assuming you're a real spell caster, your base is more likely to be sixty, which is going to put your range at over two hundred feet."

Kelli leaned in, his brown eyes sparkling as he warmed to his subject, "Now two hundred feet is nice and all, but it doesn't exactly get you from city to city does it? That is where magical rituals come into play - if you have ritual magic, you can take that teleport spell, and by investing it with crystals, increase the range a hundredfold, which will take you four miles."

Bob nodded. He had discovered that what translated to him as feet and inches and miles, was pretty close to what he was used to. Inches were a bit longer, and there were ten of them to a foot, and ten feet made a chain, and one hundred feet made a depth, and one thousand feet made a league, and five thousand feet made a mile. So things were pretty close, thankfully.

"Now, I don't know anything about traveling between dimensions," Kelli said, "although you and I will go through the archives later today. But I'm pretty sure that if we do find a set of skills that will get home, that you are going to need to increase the level of the skill as high as possible, and certainly use ritual magic."

"Alright," said Bob, "this would be a lot easier for me if I had a pen and a notebook, any chance I can get those?"

Kelli nodded, and stood up from the table, motioning for Bob to do the same.

"I meant to take you by a few shops to pick up some essentials last night," Kelli said, "Easy enough to add the mill to the list."

"Thanks," said Bob awkwardly, "I have an easier time maintaining my focus if I have things written down."

As he followed Kelli out of the tavern, he considered that he was relying an awful lot on the charitability of strangers. He didn't have much experience with kindness, but it seemed that if he took a handout, there was inevitably another hand waiting for him, demanding its price.

Kelli led him two blocks down from the Adventurers guild, towards the river, and into what appeared to be a general store. It had a prominent sign displaying a set of balanced scales, overlaid on top of the Adventurers Guild symbol.

He stepped closer to Kelli and said quietly, "Is this another part of the guild?"

Kelli looked back towards him, and then towards the sign before replying, "Ah, no, the scales over the adventurers seal means that this store has the capacity to deal fairly in crystals as well as coin, although that does tend to make it a favorite of adventurers."

Bob filed that tidbit under the mental heading of 'Good to know.'

Kelli moved through the store quickly, clearly familiar with its layout. He procured a shaving kit, which consisted of a straight razor, a wooden bowl, some hard soap, and a bristled brush. He also found a larger bath bar of soap and three sets of plain linen trousers and shirts.

He paid the clerk manning the counter with a small crystal not much larger than Bob's rat crystals and received a few coins in return.

Kelli led him further down the avenue until they reached the river, and what looked to Bob to be a water-driven sawmill.

Kelli smiled and said, "We could use magic, but the water power is effectively free, so why not take advantage of it?"

There was a small storefront where a bored clerk sat behind a desk, creating, and then either letting lapse or extinguishing, a ball of fire between his hands.

The clerk let his ball of fire disappear as he caught sight of Kelli, and he perked up, delivering a warm smile.

"Kelli," the clerk said, "haven't seen you for a bit. You need some more paper?" he asked.

Kelli gave him a friendly nod, and gestured to Bob, saying "I'm still stocked, but Bob here needs to load up, say a hundred?" Kelli looked at Bob for confirmation, and Bob nodded, "A hundred sheets, and a handful of charpines."

Bob blinked. He heard the word, but apparently, his language translation was on the fritz. "Charpines?" he asked Kelli.

"Charcoal wrapped in pine, here," Kelli said, pulling what looked like a... pencil, out of his pocket.

"Jimmi here," Kelli nodded to the clerk, who smiled proudly, "came up with them. They don't write as clearly as ink, but they don't make anywhere near the mess, and you can get a couple of handfuls of them for the cost of a pot of ink."

Bob inspected the charpine, and it was as labeled. A long, thin piece of charcoal, sealed into a very small pine dowel.

He nodded, and said, "That will do just fine."

Kelli pulled out six copper bits, which Jimmi happily pocketed.

"If you need any more you know where to find me," Jimmi said with a nod to Bob, as he went back to conjuring his ball of fire, "A bit for one hundred sheets or a bit for a charpine."

Bob gave him a nod as well, and said "I'll be sure to come and see you when I run low, which will probably be all too soon."

Kelli gave a wave to Jimmi and started back towards the Adventurers Guild.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Upon returning to the Adventurers Guild, Kelli walked back into what Bob had come to call the boarding section, down the hallway, around a corner, down another hallway, and then up two flights of stairs, skipping the second floor, and into a library.

The room was perhaps twenty by thirty feet and was lined with floor to ceiling bookcases. Several tables with chairs were set up in the middle of the room.

Kelli pointed to a table, and then made a beeline for a bookcase, returning as Bob was pulling in his chair.

He dropped two large, leather-bound tomes on the table, and pulled the sheaf of paper and the charpines he'd purchased out of his satchel, and placed them in front of Bob.

Bob held the same suspicions about Kelli's satchel that he'd had for Elli and Harv's backpacks. Everything Kelli had purchased today had been dumped into the satchel, which wasn't that large, about the size of a laptop case. With straps.

"So, first things first, we should check the books on Dimension Magic," Kelli said as he flipped open one of the tomes. "They'll have a list of paths that can travel between Dimensions."

"Yeah, well scratch Plane Walker off the list," Bob grumbled, "I don't even know how you'd qualify for that path, you have to have like, eleven skills to qualify for it."

"What?" Kelli said in confusion. "Plane Walker? I've never heard of that..."

Kelli flipped to the back of the book and scanned down the last two pages.

He closed it and reached for the other book, then paused.

"Wait," Kelli said, "Where did you read about that path?" he asked.

Bob sighed. He'd figured out that Elli and Bob couldn't see his screens.

He called up his Plane Walker query and started copying it down.

"I read about it when I was trying to figure out how I was going to get home," Bob said as he dutifully copied the information from his screen to the paper. Charpines were not a precision writing instrument.

'Still,' he reflected as he finished copying, 'they got the job done.'

He passed the sheet of paper over to Kelli, who had been trying to read it upside down.

Kelli's face paled as he read what Bob had written out.

The Plane Walker Path can be obtained by having the following Magical Schools and Skills: Magical School Elemental Fire, Elemental Fire Skill Body of Fire, Magical School Elemental Water, Elemental Water Skill Body of Water, Magical School Elemental Air, Elemental Air Skill Body of Air, Magical School Elemental Earth, Elemental Earth Skill Body of Earth, Magical School Invocation, Invocation Skill Gate, Invocation Skill Planar Adaptation. The Plane Walker Path increases all elemental resistances by one per level and provides one additional skill point per level that can only be used in the Magical Schools of Elemental Air, Water, Fire, Earth, and the Magical School Invocation. Upon attaining level ten and every five levels thereafter a Plane Walker must select a Magical School of Elemental Air, Fire, Water, or Earth, which will receive a ten percent increase in power. Each school can only be chosen once. Upon reaching level twenty-five, a Plane Walker gains the Skill Dimensional Travel.

"How..." Kelli asked his voice trailing off.

"Look, I asked about Dimensional Travel, and it led me to this," said Bob, heaving a sigh.

"Which doesn't do me any good, as I'd need to be level twenty-five and somehow have eleven points to even start the path," he finished with a huff.

"Asked who?" Kelli whispered as the paper in his hands shook.

"The System? You know, Help Dimensional Travel?" Bob replied leaning back from Kelli who seemed to be either excited or angry.

Kelli seemed to have picked up on the fact that he was distressing Bob. He set down the paper carefully. "I don't know any System, Bob, can you explain how you learned about this path in detail?" Kelli asked.

Bob shrugged. "The system, the blue boxes that show up in front of your vision?" he replied.

"What blue boxes?" Kelli asked calmly.

Bob paused. He didn't really know how to explain the blue boxes. He'd sort of assumed everyone saw them, and chalked up Elli and Harv's confusion as just part of the language barrier.

"Well, it's probably easier if just show you," Bob said as he reached for another piece of paper, and started copying down system messages.