Bob stalked out of the Adventurers Guild and paused a few feet into the plaza, taking a deep breath and letting it out.

Talking to Amber always left him conflicted.

On the one hand, he had yanked her out of their world and dumped her in a strange place.

On the other, she'd blown him up after stealing his work, and she'd been in jail anyway.

Bob fed mana into a persistent effect flight spell, and then dropped through a portal at his feet, appearing twenty feet above the front of Nikki's.

He wasn't quite sure what the etiquette was for teleporting around the city, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

He quickly descended, or at least more quickly than he had before he'd increased the level of his flight spell. He was currently at nine feet per second, which was quick enough, although, with his inflated attributes, he could run more quickly than that.

Bob entered the shop and nearly ran into Gary, who was carefully arranging a display of what appeared to be extra-large satchels.

"Monroe!" Gary said happily as he reached up to pet him, "and you brought Bob!"

"He did," Bob agreed with a smile.

"I was delving the thirteenth and fifteenth floors of the Dungeon," Bob said, "And I found some materials that I thought you might be able to use."

"Oh," Gary said and turned to walk towards his counter, "let's see what you've found for Gary today."

Bob pulled a thick coil of spider silk out of his inventory and let it fall onto the counter.

"Nice," Gary said as he inspected it, carefully avoiding actually touching it.

"I have some special gloves I use to handle spider silk," Gary said idly as he pulled out a notebook and jotted down a few numbers.

"This is in excellent shape, I could offer you three crystals for it," Gary said.

Bob shrugged and pulled out another nine coils of silk, causing Gary to chuckle and scribble down a few more numbers.

"Is there a place with a bit more room where I can drop the other thing I brought you?" Bob asked.

Gary nodded, and led Bob back to the rear of the shop, and then gestured for him to walk through a door that was somewhat hidden behind the false valley.

Bob walked through the door and found himself in the back half of the building, a space clearly devoted as a workshop. Gary pushed a rack of uncut leather off to the side and gestured to an empty area of the floor.

Bob pulled out a water serpent which fell to the ground with a heavy thump.

"I could only fit one of them," Bob said, "But I thought you might be able to use it."

"Oh, I certainly can," Gary said as he poked the dead snake.

"I'll give you ten crystals for it," Gary offered.

"Alright," Bob said, "I was looking to spend some crystals today, or at least get the ball rolling."

"Really?" Gary said in surprise, "You haven't outgrown that armor already have you?"

"No, not at all," Bob responded, "I'm looking at getting a new kitty side of the Makres, and was hoping to make it a little more armored, and have it fully enhanced both professionally and magically."

Gary blinked and his smile widened as he reached over to scratch under Monroe's chin as he said, "I'm sure we can put together something to keep this handsome boy safe, did you know what level you were looking to have it enchanted at?"

"Sixteen," Bob said.

Gary let out a low whistle as he led Bob back out to the counter, "Stones, you're moving along fast," he said with a shake of his head, "still, let's talk about what you'd like to do in terms of armoring up your kitty."

Bob followed along and said, "I'm not sure what we can do, being as he's so fluffy, but I know his current harness is a little armored, so maybe we could expand that idea?"

Gary nodded and started pulling out leather samples from underneath the counter.

"You're on the right path," Gary said, "we can upgrade the large armored plates, and then underly them with smaller ones, to ensure more complete coverage and add some reinforcement against bludgeoning attacks."

"So what color leather would you like the base?" Gary asked as he gestured to the samples spread out on the counter.

Bob slid Monroe off of the Makres and lowered him so that he was standing in the middle of the counter.

"Let's see if Monroe has a preference," Bob suggested as he tried to project a series of mental pictures towards Monroe, of the harness in the different shades of leather that were on the counter.

Monroe looked around the counter for a moment, then walked towards the end and curled up on a grey sample.

"Looks like he's chosen," Bob said with a smile.

"I can certainly work with that," Gary agreed, "let's call it twenty crystals for the materials."

Gary took out his notepad again and asked, "Now exactly what enhancements are we looking for?"

"All the attributes," Bob replied, "as well as armor, dodge, and mana."

"The same as yours then," Gary noted, "you'll need thirty-two hundred mana crystals from the sixteenth floor."

Bob nodded and said, "I'll be headed down there for the next few days, if you can do the work on the armor itself, I'll be back with crystals for the enhancements."

"Fair enough," Gary smiled and scratched Monroe's ears, "I guess I'll see you two in a week or so."

Bob nodded and replied, "Time for me to put in the work."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bob walked into the mausoleum and angled over towards Austan, sliding Monroe down into his arms as he went.

Hearing the clicks, Austan looked up and smiled, pulling out his ledger with one hand as he fished his charpin from behind his ear.

"Late start today?" Austan asked.

"Had to drop some things off with Gary," Bob replied, "We'll be down the sixteenth floor today, and it'll be a full day delve."

Austan shook his head as he noted Bob's delve down into the ledger before snapping it shut and tucking it and the charpin away, then reaching out to give Monroe a good ruff scratching.

"You and those long delves," Austan said with a sigh as he revved up Monroe's purr motor.

Bob nodded and said, "I'll need to purchase a token for the sixteenth through the twentieth floors of the Dungeon."

He shuffled Monroe's weight onto one arm and pulled four hundred crystals out of his inventory and into Austan's lap.

"Sorry," Bob said with a grin, "hard to juggle crystals with this beast on my arm."

Austan scooped up the offending crystals and stuffed them into his satchel before rooting around in it and pulling out a circular Gateway token and handing it over.

Bob stored the token in his inventory and redistributed Monroe across both arms again.

"I'll see you this evening," Bob said as tried to shuffle Monroe back up on the Makres, only to discover that Monroe had slipped into his liquid state again.

"Delve safely," Austan replied.

Bob nodded as he walked up the Gateway, pressed his new token to it, and then stepped through the event horizon and down to the sixteenth floor of the Dungeon.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bob stepped out and onto the sixteenth floor of the Dungeon, and glanced around.

It reminded him of the second floor, a soft earthen tunnel with root structures decorating the roof and walls. It even had a similar dull green illumination that was just barely enough to see by.

Bob started loading his persistent effects, an Eldritch Shield both himself and Monroe, and a fire aura on a freshly summoned UtahRaptor.

He paused to consider his Eldritch Shield.

System Help, Magical School of Abjuration, Eldritch Shield Skill. This skill allows the user to create a layer of Eldritch Force around the target, protecting the target from both kinetic and elemental damage. As pure energy, the Eldritch Shield offers no damage resistance and has a value of the user's caster value for determining the essence of the shield. The cost of this spell is one mana per second.

With a casting score of two hundred and forty, the spell capped at level ten, and his Abjuration School at level five, his Eldritch Shield was worth seven hundred and twenty points of damage. Of course, with effect over time and the persistent effect that value was reduced to one hundred and eighty, but it was still a not-insignificant amount of damage absorption.

Likewise, his Fire Aura was capped at level ten, although the Elemental Fire School was only level four, which after all the math resulted in anything hitting Jake suffering from eighty-four points of fire damage. A pittance compared to the damage the UtahRaptor dealt with each bite, but it served the goal of increasing the level the school.

Bob took several steps forward with Jake leading the way a few steps further ahead.

He jerked back in surprise as the walls, which had appeared solid, suddenly collapsed in, revealing themselves to be a pair of massive bears.

Or rather Bear-Badgers.

They were ten feet long, and eight-foot at the shoulders, with huge spade-like claws and a mouth full of fangs that rivaled Jake's.

They managed to surprise his UtahRaptor and immediately tried to pin Jake to the ground, their dagger-like teeth clamping down hard.

Bob was surprised to see that the teeth actually penetrated Jake's unnaturally tough hide.

Jake was able to shrug them off as he bit deeply into the neck of one of the Bear-Badgers, tearing out a huge chunk of flesh but not killing the monster.

His UtahRaptor was able to twist and partially dodge the following two attacks as the monsters fought in the close confines of the tunnel, the dim light serving only to show the flashing of fang and claw and the dark gleam of pooling blood.

The fight was over in seconds, his UtahRaptor victorious but not unbloodied.

His flanks were slick with blood and several bite marks marred his normally pristine hide.

A glance at Jake's health bar showed that he was still at almost ninety percent health.

"I'm not sure if I like the fact that these things can hurt you," Bob muttered to Jake as he examined the walls carefully.

The light made it difficult to see, and these Bear-Badgers had more in common with the newts on the second floor of the Dungeon that he cared for, so he brought out his light orb and fed a mana crystal into it, spilling out sunlight and allowing him a better view.

He almost wished he hadn't.

The Bear-Badgers didn't have fur so much as scaled hide, molted blacks, and browns that would fade nearly perfectly into the earth.

Their features were sharp and pointed, their muzzles much longer than either a bear or a badger, almost crocodile-like.

Bob moved forward with Jake only ten feet ahead as he inspected the walls and ceiling, looking for more Bear-Badgers laying in wait to ambush them. A few more feet down the tunnel, he spotted a pair of them, one on the ceiling and one on the left wall.

Bob smiled grimly and unleashed his UtahRaptor which lept to attack the one on the ceiling, bringing it crashing to the ground as Jake brutally bit into the Bear-Badgers back and used his weight to pull it down.

The second Bear-Badger lunged off the wall and tried to knock Jake off his feet, but the UtahRaptor was both heavier and stronger and suffered a glancing blow as he dipped his head down and ripped out the throat of the wounded Bear-Badger, ending it before turning to square off against the second one. Two more blows were exchanged before Jake stood victorious once more.

That fight had cost his UtahRaptor another ten percent of his health, so Bob felt fairly confident he could engage in five battles before he needed to resummon.

He turned his attention to the hallway they'd come up and saw that the Bear-Badgers had reappeared.

"This will do," Bob muttered as he sent Jake back into battle.