Monroe-Chapter Four Hundred and Thirty-Three. Explanations.

Kharvic had looked startled when they'd engaged their Return to the Beginning blessings, but Bob had no desire to crawl through doors and stoop through hallways, which they would have had to, given that the ceilings outside of the cargo bay where they had arrived were ten feet tall, give or take a few inches.

As they walked, he checked his quest, having noticed the notification of an update.

New Quest!

A large group of users sought to escape their planet when a rogue black hole came close to their solar system, causing significant shifts in the tectonic plates, resulting in enough volcanic activity to render the planet uninhabitable. Boarding a colony ship, they set out for a new home, but were unaware of the black hole, and were caught in it's periphery.

When the System was integrated into this universe, the radical change in the function of blackholes caused the ship to slip through a dimensional rift and into the energy stream that lies within the dimensional boundary surrounding each universe.

The System has brought you to the last known location of the ship, however it is unlikely to have remained in place. The System will provide a directional indicator allowing you to locate the ship.

Quest Objectives -

Locate the ship 1/1

Relocate the users to a habitable planet ?/?

Bonus objectives may become available.

New Objective -

The Hurstall'Kalwin is in danger of being pulled into a section of the flow with a much higher mana density. This will result in a significant increase in the tier and level of the monsters that appear. Time remaining until this occurs 43:16:49. Either remove the users to a habitable planet, or correct the course of the Hustall'Kalwin.

This quest is mandatory and may not be rejected.

Failing to complete this quest will result in sanctions.

"Well, shit," he muttered as he tapped his armband, sending a message to the group, letting them know that they were on the clock.

"Is there something wrong?" Captain Kharvic asked, having noticed his expletive.

Bob wondered for a moment if the pointy elf ears gave some sort of bonus to hearing.

He displayed the System window.

"It looks like we're on a timer after all," Bob replied. "It shouldn't be a huge problem, as you were able to move the ship over to us, so I'm guessing that you can move it in another direction as well?"

Kharvic nodded. "We can, although we can't do so forever. Our reactors are reaching not only the end of their fuel, but also their life span." He sighed. "Truthfully, the entire Hurstall'kalwin is well past her designed life span, and we don't have the materials or the facilities necessary to overhaul some of the more critical systems. Ideally, we'd like to place her in orbit around whatever world we land on, and over time, refurbish her."

"I think I can understand that," Bob replied slowly. "Hopefully, we can work out some sort of useful navigation so we can avoid the denser mana flows. If we can do that, you might be able to keep her together long enough for some of your people to choose a dedicated dimensionalist path and level up enough to cooperatively open a large enough portal to move her through."

Kharvic frowned. "I understand that you aren't dimensionalists and that even if you were, there aren't enough of you here, but surely your world has thousands of dimensionalists or more. Couldn't they move the Hurry for us?"

Bob blinked.

"Maybe?" He hedged. "I mean, we're here to help because the System said you needed it, and that's what we do, but I don't want to give you the wrong idea. Most people on our world don't work for free, and the default currency is mana crystals, which I suspect you don't have a surplus of."

"We don't," Kharvic agreed. "We've been using them to level up whenever we find them. But despite the advent of this System, we still have our technology. Perhaps we could trade some of our knowledge for assistance."

"Honestly, I'm the wrong person to talk to about that," Bob admitted. "I've been... otherwise occupied since the integration, and while I'm aware of a few of the advancements that we've made in the interim because they were directly useful to me and thus brought to my attention, I have no idea where our level technology sits in comparison with yours." He smiled. "We're a pretty inventive bunch."

"Surely you can introduce me to someone in your government who can speak of these things, yes?" Kharvic asked.

Jessica burst out laughing. "Bob? You've got the wrong end of the stick there, mate," she snorted. "None of us have anything to do with our governments, but Bob least of all."

Bob shook his head. "Yeah, I'm not a big of bureaucracy. I can probably find someone, though."

Kharvic was frowning again. "So, your government didn't sanction your coming here?"

"No," Bob shook his head. "In fact, I think there's only like two people in the government that know that we left to come here, and that's only because I had to cancel our dinner plans. They definitely don't know where I went or why, and while they'll likely figure out that I brought some of my friends, I doubt they know that they came with me yet."

Kharvic nodded thoughtfully. "It sounds like your government allows you a great deal of freedom. I'll admit I was concerned that it might have been more in line with the Empire, which our ancestors fled in search of freedom and a brighter future for their children."

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"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," Mike quoted solemnly. "Those are some of the first words penned and published on behalf of our government," he explained. "We haven't always lived up to our ideals, but we do our best, and we admit and correct our mistakes when we discover them."

"A fine sentiment," Kharvic agreed. "It's good to know that your world has a government that at least claims to support such things."

"Well, one government," Dave interjected. "We lost a few during and after the integration, but I think there are still something like a hundred and ninety-one nations?"

Kharvic's eyes widened. "How many worlds does that span?"

"Well, one, kind of," Amanda replied. "We've been busy searching for and colonizing new worlds, but I don't know how many we've found or how many of those we've found that we've actually tamed."

"Bob here," Jessica leaned into him, bumping his shoulder with hers, "figured out a spell that will send you to a random solar system. There's no guarantee that you'll find a habitable planet, but it's better than randomly jumping around the multiverse or sending ships out to scout the nearest star systems, which are thousands of light years away."

Kharvic shook his head. "That many nations on a single world... Still, it seems we might have something your people might wish to trade for after all. Our star drives are able to accelerate ships well past relativistic speeds, and we have the designs for automated exploratory vessels that were used by the Empire to map out our galaxy."

"That might be something the governments of Earth would be interested in," Bob agreed. "Of course, we need to make sure we beat that timer first, and we need to get all your people healed up, but that's something to work on, eventually."

"We are near the infirmary," Lilalyaslywain announced as she stepped into another corridor, gesturing for the one named Jessica to join her.

She watched as the golden-haired female squeezed the one named Bob's arm before joining her.

Moving down the corridor, Lilalyaslywain was pleased to see Jessica following her.

"You truly came to aid us with no thought of reward?" She asked after a few moments of silence.

"Meh," Jessica shook her head. "The System gave Bob a quest, and he shared it with us. I'm sure we'll get something out of it, but we really are in it to help."

Lilalyaslywain considered that answer for a moment.

"You are different from the Lovar," she said. "They are much more concerned with an equivalent exchange."

"We're not all moonbeams and rainbows, yeah?" Jessica replied. "Most people aren't interested in working for free. We just happen to be powerful enough and wealthy enough that we can basically do whatever we want, and Bob sort of has a saving people thing."

Lilalyaslywain's tail swished. "He spoke of finding us our own world," she began. "I've spent a lot of time exploring the System menus, and that spell to open a portal to a new solar system wasn't there," she paused. "But it is now."

"Yeah, that's some sort of wonky System shenanigans, yeah? It's like, if you know who Bob is, you can see the spells he'd made and shared. It works the same way as the ancestral blessings," she explained. "We weren't on your list before, but we're there now," she cocked her head thoughtfully. "At least those of us you've met. I'd wager Eddi, Wayna, Jack, Bailli, and Erick aren't, though. Take a look?"

Lilalyaslywain narrowed her eyes. She hadn't been alone in noticing the presence of the Divine Blessing section of the System menu. It had three entries: Vi'Raida, Mor'Noctum, and Logos. Deftly navigating her menu, she discovered that there were six new entries under the heading of Ancestral Blessings, one each of the people who had come to their rescue.

"It is as you say," Lilalyaslywain replied.

"Figured," Jessica nodded.

"You speak differently from the others," Lilalyaslywain noted. "Why?"

"It's because they're yanks, and I'm an Aussie," Jessica replied with a laugh. "They grew up on one side of the planet, and I grew up on the other, about as far away from each other as we could be. While we speak the same language, it's had a few centuries to develop into sort of separate dialects." She grinned broadly. "Australian is the best, of course."

Lilalyaslywain tail swished again. "Would the others agree with that?"

"Oh yeah, Dave and Amanda for sure," Jessica's smile was brilliant, "I think I've won Bob over too, although Mike might disagree." She leaned over and lowered her voice as if confiding a secret. "He's a real patriot, and has a hard time admitting the areas where his country falls short."

"You all seem very free with sharing information about your world," Lilalyaslywain noted.

"Why not?" Jessica shrugged. "You lot seem like decent folks, and honestly, there are only two and a half million of you. Even after we lost almost a third of our population, we've still got something like six billion people."

Lilalyaslywain's tail stilled, and her ears flattened. "That's a lot of people," she said quietly.

"I guess," Jessica shook her head. "The integration was a nightmare in a lot of ways, and we're still recovering from it, but in the end, I think it's going to make everything so much better." She giggled. "If nothing else, I'm excited about living for like, four thousand years."

Lilalyaslywain stopped abruptly. "Maybe the translation from your language to ours is imprecise," she began. "To us, a year is the time it takes the world to orbit our star, which was three hundred and eighteen days, with each day being made up of ten hours, each hour being made up of one hundred minutes, with each minute being made up of one hundred seconds."

"That's not quite right, at least not the seconds to the minutes to the hours," Jessica mumbled. "I think your days would be something like maybe fifteen percent longer than ours? But our years are three hundred and sixty-five days, so I'm guessing our years are pretty close."

"And your kind live for thousands of years?" Lilalyaslywain asked incredulously. "Not even the Lovar live so long, and their lives are measured in centuries, while we must measure ours in mere decades."

Jessica shook her head. "No, we usually only live for maybe eighty to ninety years, plus or minus a decade," she explained. "But as you tier up and increase your endurance, your life span increases." She frowned. "I'm physically twenty-one years old, or somewhere thereabouts, but I've been alive for thirty-one years, and assuming nothing kills me, I'll live for another four thousand years, although I'm sure I'll tier up long before then."

Lilalyaslywain's mind reeled.

She didn't want to label it a point of contention, as the Shallihs and the Lovar generally got along remarkably well, considering they were completely different species, but it would be fair to say that it was one of the more obvious differences and one that led to the Lovar feeling superior to the Shallihs.

Lilalyaslywain had examined her attributes, but she hadn't considered that increasing her endurance might make that large of a difference in how long she might live.

Her ears practically quivered. "If it is not too personal, what tier and level are you, that you might live so long?"

"I'm tier nine and level sixty-four," Jessica replied casually. "It is sort of personal, but we've found it best just to be up front about it."

Lilalyaslywain blinked as she considered the possibilities.

"How long," she asked slowly, "did it take you to reach that tier and level?"

"Around six years?" Jessica said slowly before shaking her head. "Although our group is sort of an anomaly. We pretty much delve non-stop, which isn't normal and isn't really that healthy either," she sighed. "It starts to take longer and longer as you go up the tiers, especially if you're picking up natural affinities along the way."

Lilalyaslywain's tail swished again. "We have a natural affinity for Mana," she said, "while the Lovar have one for Endurance."

"That'll lend itself to being a spell caster," Jessica noted. "As you evolve at each tier, you'll get a chance to add an Affinity based on your skills," she explained. "Also, if you're fighting monsters that are higher tier and higher level than you are, there is a chance they'll drop Affinity Crystals, which you can use as well. At two tiers higher and much higher level, they can even drop Attribute Affinity Crystals, which are very useful," she confided. "You'll want to make sure you're ready for that, though, as those fights are tough."

"Where do you find these monsters?" Lilalyaslywain asked. "The ones that keep appearing here don't often provide any crystals."

"Oh, let me tell you about Dungeons, yeah?" Jessica said with a grin.