Monroe

Chapter Three Hundred and Seventy-Five. Welcome to Url.

"Well, that was fast," Mike said as he sat down.

"I want to say suspiciously so, but at the same time, I feel like I shouldn't complain," Jack agreed.

"It does make you wonder. Everyone has always talked about how incredibly rare a planet like Earth is, but we've found four others, yeah?" Jessica shook her head.

"Well, we're still working out how to terraform, but you have to figure that once you reach a high enough tier, it probably isn't that difficult, or at least it wasn't," Bob replied. "The Irth and the Eire apparently create planets, remember?"

"I'm going to be honest, those guys were fucking creepy as shit," Mike grumbled. "They gave off serious war crime vibes, like they'd gas a preschool in enemy territory to 'save' the kids from 'indoctrination.'"

"We aren't going back there until we're at least tier ten," Bob grinned. "They are holding onto over a hundred solar systems full of first clear bonuses for us."

"Which brings us back around to the sweet, glorious loot that awaits us," Amanda added happily. "We have the satellites in place, and we should have the location of all the Dungeons by the time we get back."

"Speaking of the Eire, we can probably use our Eire Environmental Shelters to box in the Dungeon once we clear it," Dave said.

"Once we clear it, the monsters should stop pouring out, which ought to give us a little bit of time before the monsters from the other Dungeons flood into the area," Mike shook his head. "It's not likely to be enough to take a break, though. We all need to accept and mentally prepare ourselves for an extended deployment here. We have to clear every Dungeon. I know we took on the Dungeons on the Eire planet, but they weren't already overflowing."

"I want to try clearing them at tier ten, level fifty-two," Bob said.

"That's a big jump," Bailli shook her head.

"I have to make it sometime, and honestly, it isn't that bad. The tier jump is the one I'm worried about, which is why I'm only suggesting we go up two tiers and only ten levels over," Bob replied. "I'll have to go higher than that, sooner rather than later."

"I wonder if the rewards improve based on the tier and level that you clear the Dungeon at," Amanda mused. "That would certainly make a compelling argument for delving deeper, at a higher tier."

"You're such a little loot goblin," Dave teased, pulling her into a hug.

"Shinies!" Amanda squeaked.

"It'll be interesting to see what we are offered," Bob agreed.

"Well, fuck," Mike muttered.

They had portaled back to the planet and were reviewing the data from the satellites.

"I'm guessing that the System didn't put any of Earth's Dungeons in the oceans because the inhabitants of the planet can't breathe underwater," Bob said.

"I was wondering why that was," Jessica nodded. "It makes sense, yeah? The System wants us to move that mana around, so it would be a bit crook to put the Dungeons where we can't get at them very easily. I'd wager it has some sort of template it applies to inhabited planets."

"This one, being presumably uninhabited, has a bit over half of them underwater," Dave said. "That's going to make it difficult to get them, or at least the deepest ones."

"We have our happy little life-support collars, though," Eddi said. "Those will let us breathe underwater, right?"

"It's less the breathing, and more the traversing the depths, which will be filled with monsters rushing out of the Dungeon," Bob replied dryly. "On land, we can just portal down from above and head right into the Dungeon without having to fight. I need to have seen a location to open a portal, and light doesn't reach very far underwater." He frowned. "Submersible drone?"

"We don't have any," Dave shook his head. "We have some that can operate in space, but nothing that's actually waterproof, or that has been tested for more than two atmospheres."

"We can probably knock something together," Mike said.

"Why not just summon a fish and send it down with a light and a camera?" Eddi asked.

The room went quiet for a moment before Bob broke the silence.

"That's not a bad idea," he mused. "The monsters will definitely attack it because it's going to carry my matrix, but if I summon it out as a Defender type, it should be able to survive getting to the Dungeon." He smiled at Eddi. "Great idea."

Eddi beamed.

"Alright, so we can get to the Dungeons, hopefully," Mike said. "The next question is, where do we want to start?"

"We should still check out the islands," Dave said. "We don't know if the monsters under the water can come out of it."

"I agree," Bob nodded. "If they can, then one place is just as good as another, if they can't, then we might end up with a base of operations we can retreat to more easily than the Freedom. I'll maneuver us over the smallest island with a Dungeon on it."

"We really do need a dropship!" Dave yelled as they descended toward the island, carried by pterosaurs.

"Dinosaurs are all we need!" Eddi yelled back.

"Not all of us are summoners!" Dave replied.

Bob shook his head, keeping his focus on the Island. It was towards the end of a chain, with another dozen beyond it and over fifty ahead. It held a single Dungeon and was crawling with monsters that looked like buffalo-sized otters if said otters had an extra set of legs and exoskeleton.

At least he knew what they'd be facing.

The Island was one of the peaks of an underwater mountain range, and the Dungeon was located on a sandy beach nestled in a protected cove.

They hadn't been able to see any other types of monsters, but the bufottexos were definitely diving under the water.

"We should be there in less than a minute," Bob said, keying his mic instead of trying to shout over the rushing wind. "We're going to straight in, so don't bother killing anything."

His armor appeared, and he rolled his shoulders as the sudden weight pressed down on him.

Living Stone Scale Mail.

This suit of Medium Armor is matrix-bound to user Robert Whitman. This allows the user to store the Armor in the user's matrix, where if needed it will repair itself of any damage at the rate of 1% per second, at the cost of one mana per second. Additionally, the user is better able to resist poison and venom, gaining an 8% reduction in those effects.

Made of Living Stone from a Stone Scale Ent Wyvern. This increases the material hardness from a base of 60 to 124.

The nature of this material reduces all physical damage received by 16%.

The nature of this material allows the user to maintain a full range of motion.

This item has been enhanced with a Wytchwood Infusion. The user may increase or decrease the buoyancy of this item at the cost of one mana per second.

This item has been enhanced with a Flamefeather Infusion. The user may cause the armor to produce a set of Flamefeather wings, allowing the user to slow their descent or, for the cost of one mana per second, to glide.

This item has been enhanced with a Lightningroot Infusion. This allows the armor to channel lightning damage through itself rather than the user, reducing lightning damage taken by 16%

This item has been enhanced with a Floodvine Infusion. This allows the armor to produce and then absorb a water-like sap that cleanses the user's skin of all contaminates, which are then absorbed back into the armor.

He dismissed the pterosaur he was riding as sixty-foot-wide wings of dark flame rushed out from his back.

"God, that's so fucking hot," Jessica said over the intercom.

"I'm going to have to agree with her this time," Amanda said. "You're rocking that dark angel vibe hard."

Bob shook his head as he directed mana into his wings, which finished turning his gradual descent into a controlled glide. "I shouldn't have any trouble going directly into the Dungeon, but I'm going to drop a distraction, just in case."

He pulled his Timeless Object spellcasting staff from his inventory and cast his Summon Mana-Infused Creature spell.

Jake appeared on the beach next to the portal in all of his level eighty-nine glory. The super-sized UtahRaptor raised his head to the sky and sang the song of his people, unleashing a mighty honk.

The bufottexos converged on him immediately, attempting to bury Jake.

Unfortunately for the monsters, Jake was two tiers higher and more than twice their level. If that wasn't enough, he'd also been summoned by Bob, who walked the path of the Consumate Summoner and had chosen to bring Jake into existence as a Defender.

As the monsters piled onto the UtahRaptor, Bob directed Jake to move away from the Dungeon, attracting even more monsters, none of which could deal any real damage. An area cleared out around the entrance to the Dungeon, only interrupted by monsters emerging from the aperture, who would then immediately charge towards the pile of bufottexos that had engulfed Jake.

Bob watched with grim satisfaction as Jake tanked hundreds of monsters. He twisted in the air, inverting his position, reaching down to touch the entrance to the Dungeon.

Dungeon 4578G8249N98ISS2PM3D.

Capacity 100%

WARNING! Dungeon is in a state of extreme overflow!

Planetary Saturation 318%.

User tier eight, evolved. User grouped with eleven other sapient beings, tier eight. All users possess the 'Savior' achievement.

Users meet requirements, initializing reclamation protocol.

Mandatory Quest created.

Moving users into Dungeon.

Bob blinked and stumbled as his entire team suddenly tried to occupy the same space that he had. He had two more screens blocking his vision.

New Quest!

Meluben has been overrun by monsters! The Urlinad have barricaded themselves in their temples, praying to their gods to save them. Unfortunately, their gods are not real, but the monsters are. It falls on you to save them.

Kill the monsters, 0/10,732

Locate the Temples, 0/10

Protect the Urlinad.

"That's new," Bob muttered.

New Quest!

The planet Url has drawn too much energy, for too long. The System requires your aid to disperse the energy.

Correct overflow condition for all Dungeons on Url. 0/84

This is a mandatory quest. Failure to complete this quest will result in sanctions.

This quest supersedes the hidden quest 'Planetary First Clear,' and the value of the reward for that quest will be used to increase the reward for this one.

Reclamation protocol active.

"Sanctions?!?" Jessica asked. "Strewth, the fuck did we just step into?"

"I didn't step into shit, I got shifted into the Dungeon without even being asked," Mike said.

"Ten thousand monsters," Amanda said. "We need to get our game faces on. That's a lot of monsters."

"Well, at least it's not an actual escort quest," Dave sighed. "I hate those."

"I'm not sure this is any better," Bob said, looking around.

It looked like they were back on the beach, although there were some significant changes. Wooden docks stretched out into the water, and he could see wreckage and debris out in the water that had probably been boats.

Turning toward land, he saw that a terraced city had replaced the dense jungle. The stone walls that separated the city from the beach were easily twenty feet tall, but they were broken in places.

"I guess that's Meluben then," he muttered.

"Welcome to the suck," Mike muttered. "I fucking hate this shit."

"Alright," Bob said loudly, calling for everyone's attention. "We've got one hell of a quest here. Let's get into formation and start moving to look for those temples. Let's take things nice and easy, find out what we're up against."

His friends fell into their teams while Bob pulled out a handful of mana crystals and began to channel his Eternal Servant skill. Eleven mana crystals later, he was surrounded by a group of eight angry UtahRaptors. They were ambushers, the highest damage dealers he had.

'Are you ready?' Bob mentally projected.

'I am,' Trebor replied.

"I need a hundred seconds," Bob warned the group as he began to channel mana through the crystals, allowing it to flow into the pattern for a ritual.

He'd never cast his Summon Mana-Infused Creature as a ritual before, in no small part because Trebor had told him quite explicitly that he would have no control over a creature summoned that way. It would be a real, actual creature. There had been a few instances where he'd considered leveling his spell that way back in the early days. Just summon out a big ole Jake with a ritual and let him lose. Ultimately the realization that his summons could take him in a fight had stayed his hand.

Now, he had another option.

When Trebor had been retasked as his personal AI rather than his mirror protocol, he'd been able to have Trebor take direct control of one of his summoned monsters.

Using Trebor as the core of a ritually summoned creature allowed Trebor to become the monster.

"Bob, didn't you tell me that under absolutely no circumstances should I ever ritually summon Rexxy?" Eddi asked.

"Yes, I did," Bob agreed.

"You're not ritually summoning Jake, are you?" Eddi asked. "Because I feel like that would be kind of hypocritical? And also really unfair?"

"I have a skill that ensures Jake won't eat me," Bob replied. "If I were to cast this ritual without it, he'd be a real UtahRaptor and would see us all as food."

"I'm glad you have that skill," Eddi said. "Can you tell me how to get it? Because I would love to ritually summon Rexxy."

"I'm afraid this is one of those 'Bob got something special' things," Bob said apologetically.

"Stars and stones," Eddi muttered sadly while Wayna consoled him with a hug.

As Bob worked the ritual, the UtahRaptor began to appear. It began as a skeleton, piecing itself together, then organs began to appear while ligaments, tendons, and muscles began to wrap around the frame. The flayed form began to glisten wetly as blood appeared, visible arteries pulsing. Finally, hide and feathers flowed over the figure like paint down a canvas.

He finished the ritual, and Trebor let loose a furious honk.

"That was equal parts gross and fascinating," Jessica said.

"Everyone ready?" Mike asked after Bob, Eddi, and Amanda had brought out their summoned monsters. "Let's move."