Annisa looked up as Ellen staggered into her new office, unannounced, and slumped into a chair.

"I'm done," Ellen grumbled, shifting in the chair with a grimace, "today was the last day of Bob shepherding us."

Annisa smiled as she closed her ledger.

"Thank you," she said as she stood and walked around the desk to lay a hand on Ellen's shoulder. "The Church appreciates your dedication to bringing the light of Vi'Radia to those corners of the world that might hide the shadows of corruption."

Ellen looked up and gave her a tired smile.

Annisa took a step back and leaned against her desk, looking more closely at one of the Church's most successful agents.

Ellen looked exhausted, her face drawn with dark smudges under her eyes. Her armor, despite having been purchased only a few weeks ago, showed signs of heavy use.

"Have faith," Annisa said lightly, "your efforts have not been in vain. We now know for certain that Bob isn't the agent of infernal powers and that Holmstead hasn't been cast into the shadows."

Ellen snorted, "I'm just glad that I'm done," she groaned, "I've been delving for sixty years, and I'm rather tired of having instructions on how to delve yelled at me for several hours a day."

"Yes," Annisa agreed with a nod, "Bob explained his rules to me back when he was shepherding in Harbordeep."

"His rules are fine," Ellen replied with a touch of bitterness in her voice, "in fact, I'd go so far as to say that those who've benefited from his shepherding will be some of our best and brightest."

Heaving a sigh, she finished, "It's over now, time to move on."

Annisa smiled encouragingly. "As promised, the Church will support and aid you in any manner you'd like," she said, "you can reincarnate, choose another path, and we will shepherd you through tier six, and your reincarnation at tier six, all the way to the cap."

Ellen nodded, a smile gracing her features for the first time as she responded, "The best thing to come out of this is the Path of the Endless Swarm," she shook her head slowly, "the potential is just breathtaking."

"Would you like to go back to Harbordeep?" Annisa asked.

Ellen shook her head, "No, I think I'll stay here in Holmstead," her grin brightened, "not having to pay to delve the Dungeon is rather lovely, even with the new tax being levied."

Annisa frowned slightly before she replied, "Yes, the Church was rather surprised that the King lowered his tax; we expected him to send out the Nobles to assess the taxes, but his choice to lower the taxes serves to once again prove his cunning."

"Most of the freshers aren't happy about the new tax," Ellen confirmed, "but with it only being five percent, and the Guild not charging for delving the Dungeon, they've accepted it."

Annisa nodded and reached down to pull the other woman up to her feet. "Go see Voren," she said, "he'll get you set up with whatever you need."

Rogard sank into his chair wearily.

The past week had proven that Holmstead still held a few surprises.

First and foremost had been the state of the wall. He'd given a cursory glance when he'd arrived, just a bit of professional curiosity, and hadn't noted anything unusual. Now that he'd had a chance to thoroughly inspect the wall, he was pleasantly surprised to find that its base was both thicker and deeper than it had appeared to be.

Raising the wall another twenty feet was one of the things he had planned to do in the name of providing aid to the city. Discovering that half of his work was already done for him served to drastically accelerate his timeline for reaching that goal.

Another had been the citizens of Holmstead.

Rogard had expected to run into a lot of pushback, especially given Thidwell's contentiousness. So, when he'd first started visiting the businesses in the city, he'd been wary. His concerns proved unwarranted, as the general response had run a scale between apathy, resignation, regret, and resentment. None of them had been hostile.

It appeared that Thidwell was an outlier if a powerful, important, and well-connected one.

He shook his head.

The upside of the state of the wall was that he would have a reserve of mana crystals, as he wouldn't need all that he had brought with him.

That would serve to help him avoid what promised to be a very unpleasant interaction with Thidwell.

He definitely wasn't going to bring his wife here any time soon.

Rogard shuddered as he imagined a conversation between his wife and Thidwell.

He couldn't think of a scenario that didn't end in combat.

Amber smiled as she looked at her garden.

While she had dedicated a quarter of her spatially expanded lot to her home and vertical farming, she'd decided to design the remainder of her space as a forest glen, set in an eternal Indian summer.

She knew there was a more appropriate name, but she couldn't recall it.

She'd set her home against one side of the lot, her vertical farm rising up and forward around it, with the remainder of the space carefully tended. Her home was simple, a single bedroom, a bathroom which lived up to its name by having an actual bathtub, a kitchen, and a den. Her front porch extended to the edge of her farm and felt more like a tunnel, thanks to the rampant greenery on each side. A large, comfortable chair sat just under the overhang, providing her with a peaceful view.

A pond, cool, clear, and deep, lay just ahead of her farm, and it fed into a stream that twisted lazily through the winding meadow where a colorful riot of wildflowers grew.

Amber had consulted with a priestess of Gaia and ensured that the fish and water plants were in harmony, ensuring the pond and stream were kept clean.

There were two different beehives, ensuring the flowers stayed pollinated and providing her with a rather guilty treat.

Holmstead's only sweets were made with an odd, beet-like root vegetable and were not, for someone accustomed to the wonders of Earth's confectionary masters, particularly good.

And she had only the vaguest recollection of how chocolate was made.

So, honey, it was.

She'd slipped into a more vegetarian diet anyways.

This wasn't Earth, and the animals here weren't trapped in industrial warehouses, confined to torturous conditions, exploited until they died, the callously replaced.

No, the people of Thayland treated their livestock with respect and care.

So eggs and milk had gradually made their way into her meals.

She'd even considered a pet chicken or two but had ultimately decided against it.

As she watched the sunset, the light refracting slightly from the glass panels that served to cover and contain her little slice of paradise, she stood up with a sigh.

The ongoing enchantments were, to the average person in Holmstead, exorbitantly expensive, the spatial expansion enchantment being the worst offender at one hundred mana crystals every forty days. The remaining enchantments, for climate control, hot and cold water, a stove, etc., when stretched over the same period, added up to a mere thirty-two crystals.

An hour a day spent on the tenth floor of the Dungeon served to cover her costs while also ensuring she had an ever-growing and healthy reserve, most of which she kept in the convenient box that fed the enchantments.

As it stood, she had a bit more than four months of enchantment expenses stored in the box.

As she picked up her staff from where it leaned against the porch, she considered that despite all things about Earth she missed, Thayland had turned out to be alright after all.

Eddi felt his heart race as he dove through the air, racing to keep pace with Wayna.

He snapped his wings out as she continued her dive, bleeding off speed and watching in admiration as she leveled off, wings nearly touching the ground.

She was awesome!

Pulling up higher, she flew above the swarm of Rexettes and landed in the tree that they had surrounded, shimmering as she regained her human form.

Eddi landed on the same branch and felt the now-familiar twist as he shifted back from a hawk and into a teenage boy.

"Stars and stones, but you're amazing," Eddi said excitedly, "I don't know if I'll ever be that good at flying."

Wayna grinned at him, a slight blush gracing her cheeks.

Scooting over, she leaned against his shoulder and looked down to watch the Endless Swarm destroy yet another Komoscorp.

"You're getting better," she replied, "but I'm afraid we're going to have to call it a night; we've been here for two hours, and I'm starting to feel the pressure."

Eddi nodded agreeably. He'd helped Wayna level up by making sure she had perfect gear every five levels, and now that she was level twenty, she could take advantage of the truly ridiculous power of his path.

She practiced her skills every day, delving at level for the experience, and then spent some time with him each evening, accepting a portion of the crystals in exchange for the persistent effects she'd barraged his Rexettes with, increasing their strength.

Eddi smiled as he remembered her reaction when he'd given her the hawk carving he'd worked so long and hard to get just right.

The lingering kiss had confirmed that he wasn't imagining things and that she did like him back.

Life was pretty good, Eddi thought, as his girlfriend dove off the branch, resuming her hawk form in midair and winging towards the gateway.

Kelli looked up as Theo hurried into his tiny closet of an office.

"Kelli," Theo gasped, "we need you here; a caravan just arrived, and..." he trailed off before shaking his head.

"There are just so many of them," he finished.

Kelli stood up and shuffled around his desk, following Theo back into the tavern.

Which was absolutely packed. People jostled into each other, and more than a few chairs had been overturned, then stacked on the tables to make more room.

Looking over towards the door, he could see that more people were trying to squeeze into the tavern, which was already well overcapacity.

Taking a deep breath, Kelli channeled his inner Thidwell.

"EVERYBODY OUT!" he bellowed, his voice ringing through the tavern.

Kelli watched in satisfaction as the swell of people reversed course, and the tavern began to empty.

Kelli followed the last man out and stared in shock at the plaza in front of the Adventurers Guild.

A veritable sea of people jostled and moved, filling the plaza and overflowing down the boulevards.

There had to be better than a thousand people.

"Listen up, everyone!" Kelli shouted as he Earth Shaped a podium from the cobblestones in front of the tavern.

"First, I'd like to welcome you to Holmstead! My name is Kelli, and I'm in charge of the day-to-day operations of the Adventurers Guild! If you have business with us, please approach the podium in an orderly fashion, one at a time!" Kelli coughed and pulled out his canteen for a quick drink. As an older man, shabbily dressed, moved in front of the podium, Kelli wondered how Thidwell managed to avoid losing his voice, what with all the yelling.

"My name is Gavin," he said, "I heard that not only can you delve here without charge, but you that there some sort of new crystals available that make you more powerful?"

"Yes," Kelli said cautiously, "we don't charge any sort of fee to delve the Dungeon here in Holmstead," he continued, "as for the rest, that is a little more complicated."

He raised his hands to forestall any arguments, "I have a pamphlet explaining how that works, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you're not the only person looking for that information, so I'll have to work out a way to relay it."

"Is it true that the Dungeon here is Gated, like the one in Harbordeep?" Gavin asked, his voice full of hope.

"Yes," Kelli replied, "Thidwell Orstrang is the Guild Leader, and he brought the designs with him after his father's death."

Gavin smiled widely and sketched a short bow towards Kelli, then merged back into the crowd, clearly moving towards the back.

A young woman stepped forward, a toddler riding on her hip.

"You can delve here without having to pay?" She asked.

Kelli fought back a sigh.

Bob leaned back in his favorite chair, Monroe across his lap, watching the sunset over the falls.

He'd spent that past week pushing his freshers in the mornings and afternoons, then pushing himself in the evenings. All told, he'd gathered another twenty-six hundred mana crystals and picked up thirteen more Conjuration Affinity Crystals.

He sighed as he dug his fingers into Monroe's ruff.

He'd hoped to have had more time.

There were thirty-two million seconds in a year. If Bob did nothing but keep a portal open, even with ten people going through at a time, he wouldn't be able to save even ten percent of the population. There were just so many people.

The best choice was, of course, to apotheosis to Yheldaar, reincarnate, and then push hard. He'd lose his path, as he wouldn't have enough affinities, but the Path of the Endless Swarm was definitely more powerful, and while he'd miss out on a few skills, he'd be able to pick them back up.

That required time that he didn't have. And he would lose access to his Arcane Depths, which he might very well need when he was on Earth, as it would allow him to regain mana and delve for mana crystals.

So, he didn't really have a choice. Not one he could live with anyway.

"Tomorrow," Bob murmured to Monroe, barely audible over the big cat's purrs, "tomorrow I'll trade for the Affinity Crystals I don't have, so I can seed my Dungeon, then I'll tier up to Paragon, and we'll start grinding."

After long, careful thought, Bob had abandoned the idea of populating his Dungeon with sapient beings. It just didn't feel right.

Instead, he would build out the first ten floors quickly, with a focus on smooth mana flow, and then concentrate on the fortieth floors and below, where he would be farming for Affinity Crystals.

He'd planned out the next few weeks carefully. Eight hours of delving, six hours of working on his Dungeon, two hours to relax, eat, play with Monroe, and then eight hours of sleep.

Bob focused on the upper left corner of his vision.

Time until System Integration : 706 Days, 4 Hours, 28 Minutes, 11 seconds.