Monroe

Chapter Three Hundred and Ninety-Nine. Everything is fine.

"Strewth, that's quite the pat on the back, yeah?" Jessica breathed. "Makes a Sheila wonder what the reward we gave up was."

Bob nodded slowly. He could see the excitement on his friends' faces, but he felt something else.

Fear.

He could remember the King of Greenwold, or the Emperor of Thayland now, telling him that his saviour achievement was very nice.

The same way a parent might tell a child that the painting they brought home from kindergarten was very good. He didn't have any actual experience with that, as the only praise he'd received from his mother at that age was for cooking ramen for dinner, but he'd read about it.

Reclaimer was a powerful achievement, at least in comparison. A free level, thresholds included, in a skill of his choice, in perpetuity.

How many achievements did Kellan have?

He'd evicted gods from his kingdom and then, if Bob was reading between the lines correctly, taken part of their power. What did he get for that?

And Kellan was friendly. For a given measure of draconic friendliness, anyway.

He shook his head.

"Bob?" Dave's voice pulled him from his thoughts.

"Sorry," Bob apologized, "I got lost in my head for a minute there."

"Fantasizing about how big Jake will be?" Jessica teased.

"No, I was actually thinking about all the achievements that the truly powerful beings who have lived under the System for millennia must have," Bob replied.

The room was silent for a moment before Mike cursed. "Fuck."

"Yeah," Bob agreed. "The King of Greenwold told me as much, but I didn't really understand because I only had my achievements to go off of. Seeing this sort of brings things into perspective."

"What do we have to be afraid of, though?" Amanda asked. "The System said outright that people who stopped others from delving could end up sanctioned, right?"

"Sure," Bob nodded. "It didn't say anything about people killing each other. The Eire and the Irth are still waging war." He took a deep breath. "I don't want to spend my time worrying about some nebulous existential threat that may or may not ever appear, but I do think it's something we should be aware of."

"Yeah, well, now I'm worrying about it," Mike muttered.

"Moving on," Amanda said, "let's focus on the reward from the achievement we just earned! We should probably talk about what we're going to take to avoid any overlap when we spend the points to revere each other."

"Doesn't work," Eddi sighed, looking around the table. "You have to actually venerate, or I guess, revere, in order to spend the point. You don't think I didn't try and spend a point to get Bob's Summon Mana-Infused Object?"

"No, I didn't," Bob admitted.

"Yeah, well, I tried," Eddi shook his head. "Bob, you were, and still are, a hero to me. I'd heard about adventurers standing tall, but that night when you stood out there and saved that family was the first time I ever really understood what it meant. You're my friend, and you've taught me a lot, but I've seen you get bullied by your cat too many times for me to venerate you. You're a good man, better than you give yourself credit for, but you're not a god, and the System can apparently tell how I feel."

"I don't like what that says about a whole bunch of people," Bob muttered.

"How many people venerate Monroe again?" Jessica asked.

"A lot?" Bob guessed.

"To be fair, animism is a widespread religious practice, and it likely fed into that," Dave countered.

"I'm suddenly even more uncomfortable about this shit than I was before," Bob shook his head.

"I wonder where the cut-off is?" Amanda mused. "If someone had only seen the videos you released and understood from a mathematical standpoint the difference between themselves at tier five and you at tier eight, would that be enough for them to revere you? Would a video of that time Monroe decided to clean your face prevent them from doing so?"

Bob shuddered. It turned out that at tier seven, Monroe's tongue was like a belt sander.

"Well, after basically living together for, like, four years, I'm pretty sure we can't revere each other," Jack said sadly.

"Still worth talking about what skills we're going to take," Dave offered. "If only because the Urlinad are very likely to have access to them."

"I'd like to select Nercomancy," Harv said. "It doesn't get nearly as much use as Transmutation, so having a boost to the base would go a long way to helping it keep up."

"It also plays into the whole 'god of death' thing the Urlinad pinned on you," Amanda agreed.

"I could use it on my Shield of Protection spell," Jessica said. "It's lagging a bit behind as far as thresholds I've been able to assign it."

Bob nodded.

The sad truth was that with a triple, or even a double, affinity, capping a single spell and its school cost twenty-seven or twenty-eight points, depending. That was awfully close to half the skill points they'd earn when they were capped at level sixty-four. Capping a skill without an affinity still cost eleven points, and everyone had at least three or four skills they wanted to cap or keep close to it. When it came to utility skills or secondary skills that they used in combat but just didn't have the points to buy up the thresholds, the Reclaimer Achievement was a game changer.

"We should probably ask ourselves if we actually need another sixty-four levels to our primary spells or skills," Bob suggested. "I mean, more power is never a bad thing, but we're already looking at our spells capping at almost level two hundred when we are capped at level sixty-four. Do we need more?"

"More power is always the answer," Amanda replied immediately.

"I mean, if we all choose our primary combat skill, we'd end up with a bit of overlap, but if we can't cheese it and revere each other, then it doesn't really matter," Dave said.

"Honestly, the only real overlap is the summoners," Jessica observed. "Erick will probably boost his Anima Blast, so that's both healers, Bailli and Dave use different elements, and I'm guessing Jack and Mike have different ideas as well."

"Parry," Jack immediately stated.

"Armor specialization," Mike grunted, eyeing Jack. "Bit better for me, as I only use one shield.

"So, really, it's just you three, yeah?" Jessica finished.

"All three of us are triple affinity," Amanda mused. "As much as I like making the bigger numbers go bbbbbbrrrrrrrrrr, Bob isn't entirely wrong in that we're pretty dang cheesed up already."

"Actually, I think I'd like to go with Portal," Eddi said.

"Really?" Amanda shook her head. "I didn't see that coming."

"Well, Bob is right in that our summons are already powerful, and all we have to do is grind them up to make them even more so. But right now, Bob is the only person who can really get us around," Eddi grinned. "While I'm ok with Bob doing the driving, it isn't right for me to ask him to jump some of the Endless back and forth to Url so we can honor my promises."

"That does simplify things," Amanda agreed. "So I'll boost my summons, because I'm a little munchkin," she grinned.

"I can lean into my Summon Mana-Infuse Object, I suppose," Bob nodded. "Would have been handy to have forty-two more levels of it when I was summoning all those staves for the Urlinad. Could have saved some time and crystals."

"Well, now that we've sorted that, are we heading home? I'm super keen to see my folks," Jessica beamed.

"If Eddi is planning to come back with some of the Endless, I don't see why we should wait," Bob agreed.

"Set course for home!" Amanda ordered imperiously. "Chocolate awaits!"

"What. The. Fuck?!" Dave asked.

"Does copyright infringement apply in space?" Amanda mused. "I mean, if they built it up here and they live on it, who is going to enforce the results of a lawsuit?"

"That's a really big ship," Bob shook his head. "You'd have to have quite a few dedicated Dimensionalists cooperatively casting to open a portal for that thing."

The monstrosity that was hovering in space near Earth was truly massive, with a front end that looked almost like a steam locomotive, with a sort of underslung blade-like section under the rear, and a massive bridge superstructure on top.

"That's a proper spaceship, yeah?" Jessica breathed. "It has to be seven kilometers long!"

"Is the gold supposed to act as a radiation shield?" Bob asked. "If so, they missed the mark because there isn't enough of it, not that what they have isn't unbelievable enough."

"No, that's just how the Imperium rolls," Amanda replied dreamily.

"Hey, we're being hailed!" Dave shouted excitedly, tapping on his armband, causing a voice to flood the cabin.

"Attention, this message is for the unidentified vessel, the one that looks like a giant black cigar, this is the International Space Port Authority. Please identify your country of origin, and prepare a crew manifest as well as a declaration of any cargo you intend to bring down to the planet," the voice sounded bored and carried a slight British accent.

Dave, Amanda, and Jessica all looked at Bob.

"Fine," Bob muttered, tapping his own armband, bringing up a screen, and navigating through a few menus.

He cleared his throat. "This is Robert Whitman aboard the ISDS Freedom, out of Greenwold, I suppose. I don't really have any paperwork, should we just heave to or something?"

"Yes," the voice replied dryly, "I suppose you could 'heave to,' but you'd be waiting quite a while. If memory serves, most of your crew is from Thayland, but those of you who call Earth home lean slightly toward the colonies. I'm going to send you a data burst with the coordinates for the US spaceport, which is located somewhere in Texas. They'll handle you when you land. Welcome home, Mr. Whitman."

"Wow, it's actually busy up here," Dave reported. "I mean, considering we had a space station and like six countries that could resupply it. I'm seeing forty tiny ships and another twenty small ones. It looks like that Retribution class is the only big one hanging around."

"Any potential issues as far as landing?" Bob asked as he pulled up the coordinates the Port Authority had sent him.

"I don't think so, it's not like we actually need to make reentry, we're just going to portal it down, right?" Dave asked.

"Yep," Bob nodded. "No reason to enter the atmosphere."

The spaceport had been built a bit southwest of Sonora, Texas. Looking down from orbit, Bob was surprised to see just how green it was. He'd never been to Texas, but in his mind, he had pictured it as more of a desert.

Upon contacting the spaceport, and explaining that he planned to portal the ship down, he'd been invited to portal down himself first, at which point they would drive him over to the designated berth.

Bob was grateful for the collars provided by NASA as he bounced in the passenger seat of a side-by-side utility vehicle as it careened down a two-track road, the driver displaying a casual disregard for the limits of the vehicle's suspension as well as what might be considered a safe and reasonable speed. The sun was blazing overhead, and the mercury was well over a hundred degrees.

As they raced down the trail, Bob was surprised to see dozens of what had to be home-built ships. What the space traffic controller had referred to as 'berths' were more like lots, separated by a few fence posts and cabling. It took a few minutes, but they finally arrived at berth one hundred and seventy-seven.

"Here you are," the driver said as Bob stepped out. "Make sure you don't drop your ship on anyone else's lot. The ones on either side of you are vacant, but you never know when we might need them. Once you get everything squared away with the ship, you can call up to the tower for a ride, although if you've got a bunch of people, you'll end up waiting until one of the buses comes free."

With that, the driver slammed the side-by-side back into gear and took off.

Bob moved to the center of the lot and looked around. It was flat, more or less, with a light dusting of some sort of scrub grass. He shrugged and activated his 'Summoning Switch' skill, appearing back on the bridge of the Freedom.

"Welcome back, how does our berth look?" Jessica asked.

"Like an empty field," Bob replied dryly. "Everyone should keep their collars on, it's really hot down there."

"Texas in the summertime," Mike said. "Made the mistake of taking the ex there on vacation in September one year, figuring it would be cool enough," he shook his head. "It wasn't."

"Well, I'm dropping us down," Bob pulled a bag of crystals from his inventory, rejoicing silently in having access to the space again. The year and a half he'd spent without it while he was transporting the Urlinad had been trying.

The portal opened, and the Freedom slid through it. Opening another portal, Bob stepped through, exiting the terminus of the portal next to the Freedom.

It had been almost two years since he'd set foot on Earth, and as he stepped to the side to make room for the others, his armband started blinking and vibrating.

When Alex had upgraded their armbands, he'd included cellular connectivity.

Bob pulled up his screen carefully, looked at the ever-increasing counter of missed calls, voicemails, text messages, and email, then closed it. "Nope, not yet," he muttered.

He cast his flight spell, rising twenty feet into the air, then activated the Flamefeather Infusion on his armor, spreading his ashen wings.

Wayna shifted into the form of a hawk while Eddi summoned a pterodactyl. The rest of the group took on the hazy indistinct form of Bailli's Elemental Body skill.

"Let's go see if we can make it through customs without causing any sort of incident," Bob announced, before taking off, following the trail that the side-by-side had used to deliver him.