Monroe

Chapter Three Hundred and Sixty. Not your problem.

Bob was awoken from his slumber by a massive paw tapping his nose.

With a yawn, he sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and resting his feet on the floor. He opened his eyes and looked to his left, finding himself face to face the world's most handsome kitty.

"Morning, buddy," Bob mumbled. He concentrated on the ball of emotions that represented Monroe. Hungry-play-sun.

"I've been neglecting a kitty cat, haven't I?" Bob asked as he stood and stretched before ambling into the kitchen where Monroe's feeding trough was waiting for them. He'd given up on bowls, accepting the big Maine-coon was no longer a 'eat out of a bowl' kitty.

Bob opened the door to the walk-in cooler and entered the dimensionally expanded space in search of sustenance for the famished feline. It had been a relief to discover that by creating a dimensional space inside of a dimensional space, he'd managed to not only avoid imploding, proving that D&D had gotten it wrong, but he'd also effecitvely blocked Monroe's 'How did you get there?' skill. He didn't mind a self feeding kitty, but Monroe ate a lot and keeping track of how much meat he had set aside for him was important, and the super-sized floofer hadn't figured out how to take inventory yet.

Choosing a side of beef, he walked back out and deposited it in Monroe's trough while he fixed himself an omelet.

As he went about the well practiced mechanics of making breakfast, he thought about the day before.

He probably shouldn't have talked to the reporter. He definitely shouldn't have lost his temper.

Bob grimaced as he recalled his initial reaction to the news crew. He'd decided to talk to them because they'd waited, and he wanted to reward their good behaviour. He'd been thinking, unconsciously perhaps, that they might be able to be trained.

That wasn't how he thought about people. Or at least it hadn't been. He'd been warned, years ago, that one of the less pleasant parts of tiering up was that as you grew in power, you would start to consider the tiers beneath you the same way humans considered animals.

He'd made it a point to spend most of his time in his tier five form in an effort to prevent that. Since he'd reached tier eight, he'd stopped doing that, in no small part because it would cost him three skill points to do so. Now he had to ask himself if that wasn't a cost he couldn't afford not to pay.

Flipping his omelet, he resolved to be more aware.

"Trebor, if I start thinking about people as being lesser, please let me know so I can correct my behaviour," Bob said. In the end, the only person's behaviour he need to control was his own.

"Good morning," Yorrick said cheerfully.

"Good morning Yorrick," Bob replied, checking his armband to reassure himself that he was on time.

"Sorry to ambush you, but I needed a word, and you're devilishly hard to track down," Yorrick grinned.

"So what do you need?" Bob asked.

"I saw the news segment, and I'm ashamed to admit that we didn't consider the elderly outside of our borders," Yorrick shook his head. "We took care of everyone inside the Confederation, and as other nations have joined us, we didn't have anyone to take care of. The nature of rural Africa, I suppose. Regardless, we would like to help. I have ten thousand priests of Mor'Noctum with the reincarnation ritual, and a pile of two billion crystals. Where do you need us?"

Bob blinked. He often had trouble understanding Yorrick. He happily admitted to being evil, with a lowercase 'e', while at the same time demonstrating qualities that ran in the other direction entirely. He wasn't nave enough to think that Yorrick didn't have at least two alternate motives for offering his nations help, but in the end, what mattered were actions, not motives.

"The Old Guard are covering the states," Bob replied. "They're setup in every major city, handling the most serious cases first." Tapping his armband, he pulled up the screen and pulled up an email from Eddi.

"Looks like Spain and France need the most help, followed by Germany and Italy. From what the Endless can tell, those four countries have four million people in desperate need of reincarnation," Bob said.

"Should we coordinate through Eddi?" Yorrick asked, eyeing Bob's armband with interest.

"That would be the quickest way," Bob agreed, pulling a sticky pad and a pen out of his inventory, then scribbling Eddi's cell number on the pad before peeling the page off and handing it to Yorrick.

"I'll get to work then," Yorrick grinned and offered him a handshake, which Bob accepted. "It's good to see you," Yorrick said. "You should stop by the Confederation sometime, we can hit the temple of Vorax and catch up while we eat way too much."

"One of these days," Bob said. Out of all his experiences in the Empire, the massive buffet had been one of the best. His lips twitched into a smile as remembered Monroe's successful assault on a side of beef.

"Right, well, I'll leave to your meeting, I'm sure the secret service would rather the two of us weren't hanging around outside the White House," Yorrick opened a portal of dark green and purple energy, then stepped through it.

The portal winked out of existence a moment later, leaving Bob standing alone.

Pursing his lips thoughtfully, he resumed his walk toward the gates.

"Bob," The President said, standing up and walking around her desk to shake his hand.

"Madam President," Bob replied.

She gestured toward a couch, and Bob took a seat.

They weren't in the oval office. This room had likely been a conference room before it had been appropriated as an office for the President when she was in her tier seven form, which was why he was able to sit on the furniture.

"I have the written offer from the King of Greenwold," Bob said, pulling the folder from his inventory and handing it to her.

Elania accepted it, opening the folder and skimming through the contents.

"As advertised," she said as she closed the folder. "I couldn't help but notice that the general language was rather broad."

"The offer isn't exclusive to the United States," Bob replied. "It's meant to be an offer to the world at large, although the King will be the final arbiter of who is and is not acceptable."

"Yorrick made a similar offer, although he controls far fewer Dungeons," The President said, then sighed. "Unfortunately, it's not going to be enough," she shook her head. "What you saw in Los Angeles is an example of almost every major metropolitan area across the globe. Even if we guild up cities on top of every Dungeon on the planet, there are too many people. Some of them won't want to go into the Dungeon, and others won't want to go past a certain level, but assuming no disasters, we're looking at breaking ten billion people in the next twenty years. We'll be on Mars next year, but we're still not sure how to fully terraform the planet, so it'll be dome cities on top of the Dungeons there. That will provide some relief, but not enough."

"There is another option," Bob said slowly. He projected a System notification.

Portal Skill for user 'Robert Whitman', User identification code 40816G1407N3210ISS3PM1IO has been successfully modified.

New Skill created under the Magical School of Dimension.

New Skill : Exploratory Interdimensional Portal. This skill allows the user to open a Portal to another, unknown, dimension. The terminus of this Portal will be outside any planetary masses. Functions identically to the portal skill in all other aspects.

The Skill will mirror the users Portal skill.

"I've been jumping around the multiverse," Bob began. "It turns out that when we describe space as being vast and empty, we really aren't giving it enough weight. We found two planets that were habitable. One was full of tentacle monster plants that almost killed us, and the other turned out to be claimed by a higher tier species. The representative I met with was tier fourteen, which is barely considered an adult in that society. The good news is that there are places we can go. It'll just take time and mana crystals to find them."

"Is that spell something you can teach someone?" Elania asked.

"I mean, I could teach someone, but it would be a lot easier for them just to spend the skill point," Bob said.

"Bob, I've seen the list of spells in the Dimension School, and that one isn't there," The President replied.

'It's a personal skill,' Trebor said. 'There is a setting in your interface that will allow skills you have personally modified or developed to become available to others. It is set to keep them private by default.'

'Isn't that sort of contrary to the System's desire to spread effective cycling of energy?' Bob mentally projected.

'Upon death, any personal or modified skills the user possessed are made available,' Trebor replied.

'Toggle it, please,' Bob instructed.

"Apparently it's considered a personal skill," Bob said. "There's a setting I had to toggle in order for it to be shared."

"Thank you," Elania said. "That's a valuable gift you've just given the world."

"Sure," Bob shook his head. "We shouldn't talk about the millions of people who are going to use it irresponsibly and starve to death in space."

"That's not on you," The President said. She hesitated for a moment before continuing. "If I may be so bold, you shoulder too much," she said softly. "I don't think the people of Earth can adequately thank you for everything you've done, and I'm incredibly grateful for your discovering a problem we hadn't considered and taking steps to address it. I don't know if you have heard this, so I'm going to say it. You need to let other people carry some of the weight." She smiled gently. "You're a better man than this world deserves. Take a step back, go on that vacation. If you find a problem, let us know. You don't have to do everything yourself."

She leaned back in her chair, still smiling. "Go to Hawaii. The governments of the world are now aware of the problem, and with the help of the Old Guard, The Endless, and The Terran Confederation, we'll fix it."

Elania watched Bob walk out of her office, then let out a deep breath, the smile falling away.

Taylor stepped in through another door. "Robert Whitman, the gift that just keeps on giving," she said, shaking her head. "We confirmed the skill is available. NASA is running a full inspection on a capsule, and they expect to start jumping in five days. It's worth noting that the skill looks slightly different."

Exploratory Interdimensional Portal. This skill allows the user to open a Portal to another, unknown, dimension. The terminus of this Portal will be outside any planetary masses. Functions identically to the portal skill in all other aspects.

The Skill will mirror the user's Portal skill.

This Skill was created by 'Robert Whitman', User identification code 40816G1407N3210ISS3PM1IO. This user chose to voluntarily share this skill freely.

"Just one more thing we owe that man," Elania said.

"Be glad he doesn't have any political ambitions," Taylor grinned.

"Landslide," Elania agreed. "Even his fuck-ups work out. That interview is on YouTube with over one point one billion views, and half that in likes. The comment section is full of people cheering him on."

"That reporter fucked up. She was fine until she tried to call him out," Taylor shook her head. "She had a career maker there, but she took a wrong step, and Bob was tired and worn out. You know that's the only interview he's ever given? He did that video at the end of the Empire's recruitment drive, and he made that PSA when he was kidnapped, and did an announcement with that doctor in India, but he's never answered any questions like that."

Elania nodded slowly. "It might be worth capitalizing on that," she murmured. "Bob's telling people to get off their asses and get to delving. We can use that," she said thoughtfully.

"You're thinking of a campaign," Taylor breathed.

"I am," Elania nodded. "The entire country knows that Bob was the one who got everything started as far as saving humanity. Some circles know more than others, but none of the are shy about sharing. He's already a popular figure, and the b-roll that interview led with, which included a voice over laying out how many people Bob had already reincarnated, only went further toward cementing him as a hero."

"Speaking of b-roll, we need to get some of that crew in Hawaii," Taylor said. "He wasn't a bad-looking man before, but climbing up the tiers has been awfully damn good for him." She sighed. "The ladies as well. We need some shots of them surfing, water glistening on perfect skin stretched over taut muscles."

"I was hoping for a newer shot of Bob trying, and failing, to restrain Monroe, but you're not entirely wrong," Elania admitted.

"Have him do a Q&A with some kids who are about to delve their first Dungeon," Taylor said. "We'll promote it as a training video, where he can lay out his six rules for delving Dungeons. Slap some footage before and after, maybe cut a bit into the middle, and spin it as 'Work hard, play hard.'"

"It's definitely an opportunity," Elania agreed. "We have to get people out of the cities and into the Dungeons. Bob is absolutely right that when the next tide appears, we're going to be woefully under prepared."

Bob stepped out of his portal and onto the Freedom, where he was immediately slammed into the wall by an enthusiastic Monroe, who had been busy with Red Fang and Icy when he'd gone down.

"Hey buddy," Bob said, stretching to rub behind both of Monroe's fluffy ears.

"So, how did it go?" Dave asked as Bob guided a purring Monroe into the cabin.

"Well enough," Bob replied. "She laid out a pretty bleak picture of how things are going to look if we don't have anywhere to send the teeming masses though."

"Yeah, population growth coupled with the easy ability to stretch the average lifespan to two hundred without any real effort makes for a lack of elbow room at the table," Jessica said.

"I gave them my Jump spell," Bob said.

"You can do that?" Amanda asked.

"There's a setting that lets you share skills you've personally created," Bob explained. "It's toggled off by default."

"Well, that's a long-term solution," Dave said. "Definitely better than getting Earth involved in the Thermostat War."

They had discussed telling Earth about the offer from the Eire to occupy the forbidden planets, but had ultimately decided against it. There was something that just didn't sit right about that situation.

"The President basically told me thank you, and that they would fix the problem I'd brought to light, and to go to Hawaii," Bob said.

"Not going to argue with that, are we?" Amanda asked.

"Strewth, it's vacation time, and if other people have the problem covered, let's bugger off, yeah?" Bailli pulled Amanda into a hug.

"Let's go surfing," Dave said with a smile.