Monroe

Chapter Three Hundred and Ninety-one. One step forward. Half a step back. Bob is going to Bob.

Bob looked at the six Urlinad in front of him. They were standing just a bit more closely together and a little further from him than they had the day before.

"I would like to apologize," he began. "I've done my best to impart the harsh realities of being an adventurer to quite a few people, but in your case, I did not take into consideration that you are different from my own people. What works for us might not work for you, as we each have our own strengths and weaknesses. We're going to lean into spell casting instead," he finished, and he could see the Urlinad relax slightly.

"Have any of you not been given the basic overview of the spellcasting schools and spells?" Bob asked.

One of the Urlinad stepped forward. "We all have," he offered.

"Have you considered what school and spells you'd prefer? I can tell you that at the moment, we have Affinity Crystals for most of the Divine and Arcane schools," Bob explained.

"Three of us would like to use the Plant School so that we can eventually bless the fields, while myself and the rest would like to use the Earth School," the spokesman of the group said.

"Alright," Bob replied, pulling crystals out of his inventory. "So you'll use the mana crystals to reach level one, selecting the school you'd like, and applying your attributes to Wisdom, Intelligence, and Endurance, three, two, and one, respectively. That's the pattern you'll want to follow, although you can alternate between Wisdom and Intelligence as far as which one gets two and which one gets three. Then you'll use another one hundred and twenty crystals to reach level two, where those who selected the Plant School will choose the Poison Blast spell, and those who selected the Earth School will choose the Earth Blast spell."

He began handing out the crystals, which took a few minutes. Fortunately, the Urlinad weren't hesitant to use them, and by the time he'd handed the last priest their pile of crystals, the first was finished.

Bob began pushing his mana into the familiar pattern of his Summon Mana-Infused Object spell, adding the modifications for Effect Over Time, and then those for Persistent Effect.

He felt the mana flow out of him as it froze, leaving him with the odd sensation of part of the energy that normally flowed through his body solidifying, locking the pattern in place.

Six staves appeared on the ground in front of him.

"These," Bob pointed to the staves, "will be your spellcasting focuses, at least for the moment. We don't actually have any tier six gear, so you'll have to make do with summoned tools for now. I want you to practice hitting those targets with your spells, both with and without the staves. You'll definitely need them while we're leveling up your spells, but you won't have them once we're done training, so it's best that you don't become too reliant on them."

The clergy stepped forward, hesitantly, then picked up the staves.

"I've found it's best to focus on the benefits of the System," Bob began. "It's not going away, so you might as well try and maintain a positive attitude. One of the nice things about the System is how much of the heavy lifting it does for you when it comes to magic. If you'll turn and face the targets, all you'll need to do to cast your spells is concentrate on doing so."

The Urlinad eyed each other nervously, then the spokesman turned and pointed a finger at the stone blocks they were using for targets. A round stone, the size of a softball, blasted from his outstretched finger, crashing into the block where it shattered.

Bob nodded approvingly. "It's worth noting that now that the System has activated the energy in your universe, you can, with a great deal of time and practice, utilize it without the System doing all of the work for you."

He focused as he built the pattern for an Elemental Earth Blast. It took him just over a minute, but a five foot long stone spike appeared, exploding from Bob's outstretched hand and embedding itself in one of the stone blocks.

"It's not something that you'll be able to use in combat," Bob explained. "But it is a skill worth learning after you've gotten your Dungeons under control."

"Now, let's have everyone try their spells with their hands, then with their staves," Bob instructed.

"What a grind," Bob muttered as he slumped down into his chair.

"Strewth," Jessica agreed, handing him a glass of water. "They need twenty-four hundred experience for each level of the spell up to level six, but the monsters they're fighting are level one, so they're only getting half an experience for each one, and there are six of them, so they need to kill forty-eight hundred monsters for each of them, yeah?"

"I'm not comfortable letting them delve for crystals until their spells are at the cap," Eli said. "They're doing well with focusing their attacks, but monsters are getting to them before they can drop them all, and they don't handle that well."

"I noticed that," Jessica agreed.

"One of the things we might have taken for granted was tools," Bob added. "At low levels, when your attributes and spell levels aren't very high, the tools are responsible for most of the damage. Spellcasters don't get as much out of them as melee, but my group was able to kill the monsters in three shots."

"I don't suppose you can summon four hundred and sixty of those?" Jessica asked hopefully.

"Not as persistent effects," Bob shook his head. "I could ritually summon them," he mused. "I could only bring out twenty-four of them at once, and they'd just be tools - no professional or magical bonuses."

"That would still be a lot better than nothing, yeah?" Jessica asked.

"It would be in line with what I was handing out to my group," Bob agreed.

"Is that ritual magic, or ritual magic?" Jessica grinned.

"It would be the one hundred second ritual magic," Bob confirmed. "The good news is that I'm currently sitting on a twenty-seven percent discount, which means that instead of two thousand mana crystals, it would only cost us fourteen hundred and sixty."

"Well, before you get too comfortable, maybe you should spend the half hour to whip up a pile of those staves," Eli suggested, leaning back in his lounge chair and closing his eyes.

"Where are we, mana crystal wise?" Bob asked.

"Not as well off as we'd like," Jessica replied. "We were hoping to farm, yeah? We blew through a lot of our reserves in Dharavi, and we're kind of low. We've still got a couple of hundred thousand, but bringing up those Urlinad to level two is going to burn through almost half of them." She shook her head, and Bob blinked as the scent of honeysuckle wafted from her hair.

"We've got enough for this, and it'll pay off in terms of boosting their confidence and saving time," she continued. "We'll have them pay full price for the rituals to create staves for all the Urlinad that they are going to shepherd, so we'll get the crystals back before we move on to the next city."

Bob frowned. "I think we should only charge them the cost of the rituals," he said. "I don't want to take advantage of them."

"I admire your principles," Eli interjected, "but in this instance, we also have to consider our costs." He began ticking points off on his fingers. "First is the cost of keeping the Freedom going, because it isn't free. That's likely to be the largest expense of them all. Second is the cost to take care of ourselves, from food to showers to laundry, it all adds up, and we're talking about spending over a year on this planet. Finally, there are the costs associated with clearing the Dungeons. Yes, Harv gets a discount on his spell, but he still used over seven thousand mana crystals clearing this Dungeon. Our pockets aren't deep enough to absorb those costs."

"Honestly, picking up twenty-seven mana crystals for each ritual you cast to summon those tools will probably keep us about even," Jessica agreed.

"Alright, I'll agree to it, tentatively," Bob surrendered.

Tyolad smiled as he pointed his staff at the locust-like monster, unleashing a blast of lightning.

He'd been surprised to hear the praise from Bob's group. He had apologized to them and then provided them with tools to channel their new magic. He'd sought Bob out, intent on obtaining those tools for the rest of the clergy, only to discover that the man was already summoning them.

Bob had explained that the weapons he was summoning were permanent creations, although they required him to use mana crystals. He used one hundred crystals to create twenty-four staves and would use a total of two thousand to create one for each of the clergy. He'd explained that the tools were force multipliers, and while they weren't quite as important at higher levels, they made a world of difference during the early levels.

The High Priest had been quite pleased with the results.

Initially, he'd been deeply concerned as they weren't able to kill all the monsters before they reached the group. Yes, their benefactors had healing magic, but that didn't make the memory of the pain go away, nor the terror. The staves had changed that.

Bob had sat down with him and told him that while they were happy to provide the mana crystals to advance the first group to level two and to provide the weapons, the Urlinad would need to provide the crystals for the next group. It was clear to Tyolad that Bob was uncomfortable admitting that his group did not have unlimited resources, but he'd assured the human that the Urlinad would expect to have to pay their own way.

That had been ten days ago.

The humans had driven them for twelve hours a day, demanding that they kill monster after monster. They varied in their techniques, but the Lord of Blight and the Storm Princess were quickly becoming legendary.

While the Lord of Blight no longer forced them to fight monsters in close quarters, the rest of his style had not changed at all. He exhorted the clergy, demanding more of them, describing the horrors that awaited their families if they failed.

The Storm Princess expected nothing less than perfection. She had told each group that they had been given a gift that they hadn't earned, and the only repayment she would accept was performing up to her standards. Of course, her standards were nearly impossible to meet, and when you failed, she would look at you with her storm grey eyes, dancing with lightning, and explain in a calm, cold voice exactly what you had done wrong. It was horrible, like standing in the eye of a storm.

He wasn't sure which one of them was worse.

At the moment, his group was being shepherded by the Lady of Light, which was one of the more pleasant experiences.

"Keep blastin', yeah?" Jessica encouraged them. "I know it's long days, but it's no worse than being in the bush, and you've got coolies waiting for you once you're done!"

She had tried to explain what this 'bush' was, and it had sounded terrible. As much as the storms brought trouble, he still prayed to the Queen of Storms to bring them. A place without water would be a nightmare.

'Coolies' apparently meant a cold fermented beverage, which was something he did enjoy.

He admitted to himself that he also enjoyed blasting monsters, lashing them with the lightning that was the domain of his Goddess.

It was difficult to tell, and he was likely the only one aside from Gualla and Lara who could, but he suspected that the humans were not altogether pleased with their progress. They hid it well, but he'd walked into one conversation where the group had been going over the mathematics of their advancement.

He had to admit that he'd been surprised when they'd told him that they wouldn't be advancing to level three until their spells had reached at least level nine, which was another ten days away.

They were insistent that their spells had to be at the highest level possible.

Tyolad had deferred to their experience, although he had his doubts. They'd moved on to fighting level two monsters once their spells were level six, and he was still killing them in two lightning blasts.

Still, while they weren't gods, they were powerful and had much more experience.

Bob had told him that his people were a tier lower than the Urlinad, and had no natural affinities.

"Tyolad, I know Curoa has a nice tail, but you need to focus on the monsters! Plenty of time for that after we're done, yeah?" Jessica's voice pulled him from his thoughts, and he controlled his reaction to blush.

The Lady of Light was incredibly perceptive and had picked up on their body language far too quickly. She'd noticed his eyes wandering over to Curoa once during the last time she'd overseen his group, and she hadn't let him forget about it.

Curoa glanced over her shoulder and winked at him, swishing her tail coquettishly.

He'd been successful in restraining his reaction to the beautiful High Priestess for over a year, telling himself the position he held made any sort of relationship or even dalliance unadvisable, despite her flirtations.

Tyolad felt like he'd been successful, as her flirtations had waned somewhat. Then The Lady of Light had caught him admiring her tail, and all that progress had been lost.

He'd even seen Curoa walking with her, speaking in hushed whispers as they cast quick looks in his direction.

He couldn't say for certain, but he suspected that Jessica had been encouraging Curoa's pursuit.

Shaking his head, he continued to blast the monsters with lightning, keeping his eyes on the work.

"The gods have a hard-on for Adventurers!" Bob bellowed. "Because we kill, EVERY MONSTER WE SEE!"

"Remember your A B K's! Always Be Killing! You can rest when you're dead! Which had better be at the end of a long, fruitful life! Because Adventurers are not allowed to die without permission! And you do not have permission to die!"

Bob watched as his group of priests and priestesses struggled to keep up with the influx of monsters.

They'd been getting a little complacent, a bit too confident in their new powers as their spells had leveled up.

That just wouldn't do.

So, Bob had moved them up to where the tunnel exited to the temple square, just far enough that they had to face two groups at once.

That had put them back in the proper mindset.

"The fear you're feeling? It's nothing compared to the terror and then the agony that the children will feel if you fail to protect them from the monsters! Take that fear, and use it to fuel your anger, to fan the fires of your hate! Pour that hatred into your spells!"

"Who are you!" Bob screamed.

"Adventurers!" the Urlinad shouted back breathlessly.

"And what do you do?"

"We kill the monsters!" they roared. "We stand before the wave!"