Rogard opened the box with trepidation. In his experience, it was a rare thing to receive good news via courier. He ignored the smaller box inside, choosing to read the letter first.

Lord Rogard Wallenstair,

A new settlement has been built within Greenwold. It lies just over two hundred miles to the Northwest and should be easily found at the edge of the glacial shelf. Robert Whitman has built a Dungeon and begun sending Adventurers into it. Your House's dedication to the needs of the nation has shone through brightly, and as the star of House Wallenstair rises, so do the duties laid upon it. You are tasked to send a member of your family to oversee the collection of our Tax from this new settlement. The agreements made regarding House Wallenstair's stewardship of Holmstead apply in detail to the new settlement. Rejoice, for this marks the first time a Noble House has been assigned the responsibility for two settlements at once. We trust that you will continue to present a sterling example for the other Houses to follow.

Signed,

His Majesty, King Kallan Garvades, First of his Name, Blessed of Vi'Radia, Defender of Greenwold, Sovereign of the Skies.

Rogard put his head in his hands. The reward for a job well done truly was more work.

His wife and his father were the two most senior members of his family, and neither one had the temperament to work with Thidwell. His eldest son was at a critical point in his advancement, at the cusp of tier six, working with a group of other heirs. It would be disastrous for House Wallenstair's political alliances to pull him from the group at this juncture. While Rogard hated playing politics, his house's reputation for steadfastness was the cornerstone of their identity.

No, he couldn't pull anyone from Harbordeep, his youngest son not having taken the path yet.

He grimaced and raised his head, shaking it to clear his thoughts. He had a solution of sorts. Nora hadn't been stricken from the family, as her rebellion had been kept quiet in the hopes that she'd see the error of her ways. She technically remained a Wallenstair, if slightly removed from the family proper, politically. She knew Bob well, having been shepherded by him and receiving her new path and Affinity Crystal from him as well. They had, to the best of his knowledge, a good relationship.

Bob himself had seemed rather mild-mannered as well, which would hopefully lead to a cordial relationship without the active dislike Thidwell held for the Noble Houses of Harbordeep.

Assuming Bob was aware of the King's tax and had withheld it from his Adventurers, this might be a simple matter.

He hoped.

"You want me to do what?" Nora asked, not believing her ears. Her father had tracked her down at dinner and asked to speak with her privately. He'd then asked her to go to Glacier Valley, although he called it Bob's new settlement, and represent House Wallenstair by collecting the King's tax.

Her father sighed. "Can you imagine your mother, or worse, your grandfather dealing with Thidwell?" Rogard asked.

Nora snorted. She could imagine it all too easily.

"Exactly," He nodded, "and I'm not sure how much better they would be in regards to dealing with Bob."

"Bob's nice," Nora said slowly, "but he's also tough. I don't think he'd put up with either of them for very long." She shook her head, "Why am I agreeing with you? I don't want to do this, I have a party here that I'm leveling with, and sure it's a little slow right now, what with the endless hogging so many delves on the deeper floors, but still, I doubt Bob has his Dungeon down past the fourteenth floor."

"Because, even though your mother and grandfather can be... difficult," Rogard said, "you're still a Wallenstair, and we raised you to live up to not only the rights but the responsibilities associated with our name."

"Maybe I can just visit once a month to collect," Nora muttered.

"Nora," her father scolded her, "if you're collecting the King's tax, you're acting as his agent through our house. You have to be available if trouble should arise, and you'll need to stand against the wave, which I believe is due in just a few weeks."

He rubbed a hand over his chin, "You'll want to check the defenses, make sure it can stand against a tide."

"I haven't agreed yet," Nora complained petulantly. She knew she was going to agree in the end, but that didn't mean she had to be happy about it.

"Just temporarily," her father said, "maybe a year at most."

"A year!" Nora shook her head violently, her untameable curls slipping out of her hairband, cascading down to frame her face.

"I can start making arrangements, your cousin, Danielle, she'll be taking her path in a couple of months, then we'll just rush her though, and in six months, maybe a few more, she'll be ready," Rogard promised.

Nora sighed, tugging at an escaped lock of hair. Her mother had often said that it was her father's calm persistence that had won her over, and Nora knew that once her father set his sights on something, it was only a matter of time.

As if he could sense her thoughts, her father smiled at her.

Bob stepped through the Portal, following Eddi.

"Stars and stones," he heard him exclaim. Over what he wasn't sure, but this was Eddi's first trip to Earth, and Dave and Amanda's house likely represented an entirely exotic environment to him.

Bob walked into the game room and took a seat. Eddi was holding a player's handbook, looking at it in fascination. Bob couldn't help but grin. He hadn't even opened it yet.

"So," Eric said as he took out a seat and pulled out his phone, "we're looking for a thousand marines, plus or minus a few."

"Yes," Bob confirmed, "but it's important that they're willing to commit to delving the Dungeon," he stressed.

Eric snorted as he tapped out a message on his phone. "Veterans who didn't come home whole get treated like shit," he growled, "no one likes looking at a cripple, and those young, pretty girls we married straight out of high school, they don't stick around after they get a good hard look at having to help their husband for the rest of their lives." He shook his head, still tapping, "and the ones who do stick around, they end up leaving once they realize we left more than just body parts over there. PTSD, Alcoholism as a form of self-medication, depression, the list just goes on."

"I'm sorry," Bob replied uneasily.

Eric waved his hand, "Not your fault, from what Hanson said, you had about as shitty a life as you can have in the U.S.," he said, "just call it decades worth of frustration." He finished tapping and leaned back in the chair, stretching. "I wonder if there is any beer left," he muttered as he stood and headed for the kitchen.

Eddi leaned over to Bob and whispered, "How come he calls his friends by their second names? Is that normal here?"

"No," Bob replied, "although I think the marines do that because when they go through training, the instructors call them by their last names, as do the officers, the people in charge of them, so they get used to being known that way? Maybe? You'll have to ask one of them to be sure." Bob paused, then added, "Not Steve though, I think he might give you the wrong answer as a joke."

"We're out of beer," Eric announced sadly as he walked back into the game, checking his phone. He nodded once and looked back up, "Got my first response; they're about thirty minutes out. I'm going on a quick beer run; I should be back in fifteen; you two want anything?"

"Can I have some Earth food?" Eddi asked eagerly.

Eric grinned widely, "Sure, kid, I'll hit the drive-through," he looked over at Bob. "Actually, wanna make it a group outing? Show Eddi a bit of Earth?"

"Sure," Bob replied slowly, "if we're over here, we might as well." He grinned suddenly, "Monroe loves milkshakes," he confided in the group, "and I mean, he just goes crazy for them."

"Where is he anyway?" Eric asked, looking around the room.

"I try to keep him in my inventory when I'm here on Earth," Bob explained, "he doesn't like being a regularly sized kitty anymore, and he draws a lot of attention being as big as he is."

"Wait, you've got some sort of video game inventory?" Eric motioned for the other two to precede him out of the game room.

"I do," Bob acknowledged, "it's sort of like one of those spatially expanded bags the gaming group showed you guys, except it's kind of quantumly entangled with my matrix?"

"Can I have an inventory?" Eric asked as he led them down the driveway to his sedan.

Not for the first time, Bob felt the loss of Trebor. He hadn't realized how much he'd gotten used to being able to query the Mirror Protocol.

"I'm not sure," Bob hedged, "but I can find out."

Eric nodded, watching in amusement as Eddi walked around the car twice, looking at it from every angle.

Bob shook his head and walked around to the passenger side as Eric opened the driver's side door. "Go ahead and get in," Bob said, opening the passenger door and gesturing towards the seat.

Hopping into the rear seat, Bob watched in amusement as Eric demonstrated how to use the seat buckles.

"Why do you need to strap yourself in?" Eddi asked, plucking at the strap across his chest, "this is safe, isn't it?"

Eric's grin did not bode well as he twisted the key in the ignition, and the engine rumbled to life, a quite gentle burble coming from the exhaust behind the car.

Eddi started and looked at the dashboard with a hint of trepidation. "What's that nooooiiiiiiIIISSSSEEEEEE!" Eddi's question turned into a scream as Eric slammed the car into gear and punched the accelerator to the floor.

Bob grabbed the armrest as the rear end of the car broke loose, slewing to the right, then back to the left before the tires found their grip and the car shot forward, the force of the acceleration pressing him back into his seat.

"Stars and Stones!" Eddi yelled as Eric piloted the car out of Dave and Amanda's neighborhood. Bob couldn't see the speedometer, but he was certain they were exceeding the speed limit by a significant margin.

"Hot damn," Eric crowed as he downshifted, slewing the car around a corner before flooring it again. "Haven't been able to really let her rip since I lost my arm!"

Eddi was clinging to the armrest, and Bob could see the telltale sparkle of an abjuration shield around him.

"You'll want to save your mana," Bob yelled over the roar of the engine, "you can't regenerate it here."

By the time they arrived at the liquor store, Eddi had recovered from his initial scare and was eagerly questioning Eric about the car.

"You know how much work a horse can do?" Eric asked, "like how they plow a field or whatever?"

"Not really," Eddi admitted, "my parents are carpenters."

"Well, if you can imagine it," Eric said, "the engine in that car has over four hundred horsepower."

"That seems like a lot," Eddi said admiringly as he looked around the interior of the car.

Bob admitted that he'd only seen classic cars like this in a magazine at Happy Paws. It looked like it could have rolled off the showroom floor a few days ago.

"It is," Eric grinned, "now you two ren fair rejects stay in the car, I'll grab the beer."

Eddi unbuckled his seat belt so he could squirm around and face Bob. "Ren fair rejects?"

"There is a celebration that people go to where everyone dresses up clothing from ages past," Bob began, then he noted the blank look in Eddi's eyes. "We used to be just like Thayland," Bob said, "without the magic and monsters, of course, but we used horses to plow fields, and we made everything by hand." Eddi nodded at that.

"It wasn't that long ago, less than a thousand years, that we started to advance, making better tools, finding easier ways to do things, building machines to work for us," Bob explained, "and we remember what it was like before we did that. Some people like the clothes that people wore back then; they like the idea of living in that time, so they'll get together and dress up and pretend."

"It's called a renaissance fair, and our armor looks a little bit like something someone would wear to that celebration," Bob finished, seeing the light of understanding in Eddi's eyes.

Eddi looked around the liquor store parking lot, eyeing a group of people who hurried out of a Chinese restaurant. "Our armor doesn't fit in at all," he said slowly.

"It doesn't," Bob agreed, "but let me tell you a secret," he leaned forward, "I love my armor," he confessed.

"Gary's armor is amazing," Eddi agreed with a broad grin, "I tried on the armor that Orson brought from Harbordeep, and it just doesn't compare."

The door to the liquor store in front of them swung open, and their conversation paused as they watched Eric pull a hand cart out of the store, stacked up to his chest with cases of beer. He was followed by two other men, each with a hand cart as well.

The car settled noticeably as they pilled the cases into the trunk.

"What's all that?" Eddi asked quietly.

"A kind of ale?" Bob replied hesitantly.

"That's a lot of ale," Eddi noted, watching as Eric shook hands with the two men, one of whom stacked the handcarts on top of each other, before they headed inside, with Eric sliding back into the driver's seat.

"Alright," Eric rubbed his hands together, "I told everyone it was BYOB, but that should hopefully cover the slackers."

"BYOB?" Eddi asked, confused.

"Bring Your Own Beer," Eric responded as he turned the key in the ignition. "I don't know if I could afford enough beer for that many marines, but I damn sure know I don't have enough room in my baby to carry it," he affectionately patted the steering wheel.

"Mcdonald's is just down the road, we'll grab a sackful of burgers and head back," Eric backed out carefully before nosing out into the street.

Bob could see the golden arches a couple of blocks down, and he shook his head. He'd suggest a shake for Eddi. He could only imagine what he'd be like after powering down a bucket of soda.