Bob smiled as he took in the vista from atop the ridge. The first time he'd been here, he was still reeling from being blown into a new world. The second time, he'd been consumed with the need to save Monroe.

This time he was able to appreciate the view. He shifted slightly, adjusting his right arm which was cradling Monroe's hind legs. The big maine-coon was draped over his shoulder, purring lightly as he observed the environment around him.

It turned out that if Monroe was feeling something strongly, he could push those emotions towards Bob. If Bob chose to focus, he could determine Monroe's emotional state. At the moment that was 'content-warm-comfortable'. Bob had sorted out the hunger issue with a piece of jerky.

Kelli had remained mostly quiet on their trip back to Holmstead, but as they looked down over the valley, with its patchwork of fields and the silver river twisting and winding through it, he cleared his throat and said, "So, you've succeeded."

Kelli gestured towards Monroe and continued, "Now that you have Monroe back, what do you see yourself doing?"

Bob cradled his staff in his left arm and adjusted Monroe before he started to scratch behind the cat's ears.

"I recognize," Bob began slowly as Monroe's purr motor switched into gear, "that I owe a debt to the Adventurer's Guild, specifically you, Harv, Elli, and above all others, Thidwell."

Kelli blushed slightly and started to protest, but Bob went on, "By my estimation, Thidwell has spent, either directly or indirectly, a touch under three hundred and fifty mana crystals on me."

Bob turned to face Kelli directly, and continued, "I've talked to Elli and Harv a bit about the economy outside of the guild, and that is enough money for a man to live in a lifestyle rather depressingly similar to that which I'm accustomed to, for the better part of a decade."

He shook his head slowly and said, "I don't know why. He could have just kicked me out into Holmstead to fend for myself, and I wouldn't have assigned him any blame for what became of me. But he didn't, instead, he spent an unreasonable amount of money to help me."

"So, I'm going to join the Adventurer's Guild," Bob said firmly, "and I'll delve the Dungeon for an hour or two a day, every day until I have enough crystals to repay his generosity."

With that said, Bob took up his staff again and opened another portal, clearly eager to be back to Holmstead.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Kelli had hurried off on a few last-minute errands in preparations for being shepherded to ten the next day, leaving Bob to make his way back through Holmstead to the Adventurer's Guild on his own.

Monroe had squirmed and twisted and turned and wound up with his back end in the hood of Bob's cloak. Now he sat primly with his paws over Bob's shoulder, ears facing forward as he took in the smells, sounds, and sights of Holmstead.

As far as Bob was concerned, this arrangement was just fine. The cloak attached at the shoulders, so it was sort of like wearing a high-riding backpack. Filled with twenty-four pounds of inquisitive Monroe.

He paused as he entered the plaza in the center of the town. He was effectively broke. He might be able to sleep in the room he'd come to think of as his, but he wasn't certain.

Bob reached up with his right hand and rubbed under Monroe's chin. "Come on buddy, I'll show you what I've been up to while we've been apart," he murmured as he turned towards the Dungeon.

"We'll spend an hour or two in the Dungeon this evening, and then we'll be able to pay our own way," Bob said as he strode forward.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It turned out that Monroe found the process of hunting monsters to be immensely entertaining.

Bob had portaled to his usual hunting position and slowly started pulling packs of wolves. During the trip back to Holmstead, Bob had taken a few minutes to review the blue boxes that had appeared while he was summoning Monroe, and a few of them had been disturbing.

System Warning! Attempting Ritual Magic with a damaged matrix will result in extensive, potentially fatal physical damage. The user's matrix may also suffer additional damage.

That one had turned out to be rather prophetic, as another had appeared.

System Warning! Unable to channel mana through damaged matrix, additional matrix damage accruing.

Bob had gone into his system options and with Trebor's assistance, added a small opaque number to the bottom left of his vision that expressed his matrix damage as a multiplier to his mana costs. Previously, the value had been one point eight. Now, the value was two point two. It was becoming clear that his damaged matrix was a serious issue.

Bringing out Jake was now two point two mana each second. If Bob used effect over time, the cost was four-point four with the default three-second duration. Increase the duration to five seconds raised the cost to eight point eight mana per second. Previously the cost was seven point two, which slotted slightly under Bob's regeneration rate of seven point seven mana per second.

The good news was that at level eleven, Jake was a wolf killing machine. So while Bob had to cast three Jake's with effect over time pushed to five seconds, and then bring out a three second Jake to finish things off, he was still ripping through the wolf packs.

Still, he could see the writing on the wall. He was definitely going to have to address the damage to his matrix sooner rather than later.

Not all of the notifications had been bad news though.

User Robert Whitman has successfully initialized Ritual Magic - Summon Monroe. If you would like to force the target to be summoned, please mentally project or verbally articulate "Forced Summoning". Failure to do so will allow the target to choose to ignore the summoning. Ritual Magic - Summon Monroe target has willingly accepted the summoning. Target classification has been changed to 'Familiar'.

He hadn't seen the message about forcing the summoning. Everything had worked out for the best, but it was good to know that he could, in fact, forcibly summon someone to this world.

He was startled from his reverie as Monroe, who had been batting at a pine cone near his feet, leaped onto his back, and climbed his cloak to perch on his shoulders, ears laid back and hissing.

As his UtahRaptor pack finished off yet another group of wolves, one of the huge bears that periodically wandered about this level let out a roar of challenge and barrelled into the fight.

Bob quickly cast another Jake, this time maintaining concentration on his spell as his remaining Utahraptors faded out of existence as their timers ran out.

He'd discovered that a full power UtahRaptor was more than a match for a bear, and was damn close to being a match for four wolves.

Monroe was indifferent to the wolves as long as they were more than thirty feet away. He did not like the bears though and had proven to be an excellent early warning system when one was approaching.

After stuffing the defeated bear into his inventory, Bob decided that he'd done enough for the day. He'd been down for a touch under 2 hours, the results of which were eight hundred and four wolves killed and twenty-one bears.

Bob had also pocketed thirty-five crystals. As he teleported back to the Gateway, he considered that something was wrong with the math. He resolved to talk to Elli and Harv about it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After delivering two bears to Kevin, and receiving a pair of crystals that would serve to provide dinner and his room for the night, Bob found himself relaxing in the bathtub, while Monroe lounged on the sink.

He'd asked Bailli, but apparently, Harv and Elli had already eaten for the night and retired. He wanted to discuss exactly how monster hunting in the Dungeon worked for other people. Kelli had described it, but Bob had come to realize that Kelli was an academic at heart, and didn't have a lot of real experience. That, combined with his self-admitted non-combat path, might explain why he thought hunting and leveling were slower than they seemed to be for Bob.

But then again, Harv and Elli had both indicated that they didn't hunt that quickly either.

Bob suspected that his hunting speed had everything to do with his UtahRaptor. First and foremost, Bob was punching way above his weight class, thanks to the Summoning crystals that Thidwell had provided. If his summoning spell had been level six when he'd started down on level seven of the dungeon, he wasn't sure if he would have succeeded. He would have probably needed frequent and rapid intervention from Harv and Elli. Having it at level nine, and now eleven, was a huge advantage. If you then took into consideration the nature of summoning, in that each time you brought out the summons it appeared with full health...

If he hadn't chosen the bonus to the maximum level of the summoning spell, or if it had only allowed the spell to advance past the normal level cap once it had hit twenty-five...

Bob shook his head.

He'd gotten lucky. Terribly lucky. Main character in a bad novel lucky.

Of course, he'd also been effectively crippled. He still couldn't use the persistent effect skill. Which was a damn shame, because having a nearly level four UtahRaptor out all the time would have been fantastic. But persistent effect reserved twenty mana, for normal people who didn't suffer from terrible damage to their matrix. For Bob, that number was now forty-four.

Also, he didn't have a path. And as it turned out, paths were pretty fucking awesome. There was of course a catch - the more strict and stringent the requirements were, the more advantages the path had. Curator was a prime example. Twenty free skills from five to twenty-five, and a one hundred percent bonus to the size of their shaping spells. Trebor had quietly confirmed that the Curator path was indeed overpowered in comparison to the other paths. One of the unspoken requirements for the Curator path was the need to worship a deity. Apparently, the Divine schools of magic required the caster to actually worship a deity. Real worship. You had to enter a temple and pray at an altar consecrated to the God you wanted to worship. If you were found worthy (and Bob had no fucking clue exactly how that was determined), the diety would give you its blessing, which would allow you to purchase divine magic.

At that point, Bob had shelved the conversation. He was still having a hard time accepting the fact that Gods were real here, and he certainly wasn't interested in worship. Besides, he couldn't choose a path anyway.

Bob sighed as he stood up and grabbed his towel. If he'd been able to take the Arcanist path, he'd already have been enjoying a free skill and a six percent increase to the power of all his spells.

Still, the only way through was forward. If he was able to repair his matrix, and then choose a path, he'd be able to take endless swarm. With his Summon UtahRaptor spell inevitably reaching the point where it was ten levels over spec, that path would be pretty overpowered. At level twenty-five, he'd be summoning thirty-two Utahraptors at level twenty each. Out all the time. And if one died, it would reappear after five seconds.

Bob smiled as he laid down in bed, pulling his blanket up just in time as Monroe leaped from the sink and landed on the bed. As he snuggled down, Monroe curled up behind his knees and started purring.

And for the first time since the day of the accident, Bob quickly fell into a deep, comfortable sleep.