Monroe-Chapter Two Hundred and Seventy-Three. The meatgrinder.

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"Even Ranks! Step out low!" A voice shouted across the battlefield.

In a wave of uncoordinated motion, half the front row of people stepped forward, keeping their shields in front of them, while half the second row stepped forward with them, thrusting low between the now open spaces. The rows folded back together messily, but the maneuver had dealt significant damage to monsters that were hurling themselves against the shields of the front row.

Ed grimaced as he saw one of the shield bearers go down, a chitin scythe cutting under her shield and deeply into her leg. She was pulled back through the lines as the spearman behind her dropped his spear and pulled his shield off his back, stepping up to take her place. 𝑓𝓇𝘦𝘦𝔀𝓮𝒷𝘯𝓸𝓋𝓮𝘭.𝓬𝓸𝘮

The Dungeon was an open cavern with walls on each side to anchor the line, preventing the monsters from flanking them. From the far side, an endless wave of monsters rolled across the cavern floor. In this case, the monsters were insectoid, with four legs and four arms that ended in scythes made of chitin. They were five feet tall, which meant the majority of the humans fighting them had to crouch to keep their shields at the proper height. It had to be hell on the knees and back, Ed mused.

Yorrick and Harper were standing next to him as all three of them hovered twenty feet in the air, giving them a commanding view of the battlefield. The commanders were also flying, shouting orders, their voices amplified by magic.

Yorrick made a gesture, and the sound suddenly cut out. "I know it's not exactly what you expected," he began, "I think it's what you would call a cultural difference."

"They were absolute garbage," Harper added, shaking her head. "Utterly useless. It took two days before they'd all managed to muster the will to fight back. They're coming along rather nicely now that they've gotten a taste for it."

"You just stick them on the front lines?" Ed asked.

"We make sure they know to keep their shield in front of them and which end of their swords and spears are sharp," Yorrick grinned. "Other than that, yes. We have healers on hand, and while some of them have scars, we haven't lost anyone."

"It's been centuries since we've lost someone on the first floor," Harper agreed. "We keep more than enough staff on hand to ensure that no one dies, although we also make it clear that we won't step in for anything less than a lethal or crippling wound."

"So they're in here, at level zero, for eight hours, in this meatgrinder?" Ed asked.

Yorrick and Harper both nodded happily.

"Jesus fucking christ," Ed muttered.

Unable to apply the Bob treatment to the IRS, he'd resorted to pulling the memories of Bob's training regiment from some of his more ardent adherents and having classes that taught from those recordings. He'd thought, more than once, that it was odd to see Bob, who was normally rather easy-going, turn into a brutal taskmaster when he was placed in charge of a bunch of kids, but even the eight hours Bob put those kids through was nothing in comparison to the hell the people in front of him were enduring.

"It's true to life wave conditions," Harper explained. "When you're fighting a wave, it's numbers against numbers."

"I know it's not like that in Greenwold," Yorrick interjected, "but to be quite honest, Greenwold loses people during waves. We don't, which is the strongest recommendation that can be made for our methods."

Ed shook his head. He'd seen footage of people fighting the wave in a number of towns in Greenwold, and the tactics there were to have a small number of powerful people or groups of moderately powerful people who fought off all the monsters.

"In the Empire, everyone is responsible for not only their own safety but the safety of their friends and neighbors. Waves are, by and large, comprised of low-level, low-tier monsters, nothing that can't be handled by an adult," Harper went on. "By having our citizens fight against the waves, they gain valuable experience that could be critical if they should ever stand against the Tide."

"Yorrick has explained that as well," Ed replied, "although seeing it play out in front of me puts it into another context entirely."

He watched in silence for a few more minutes until he spotted an entire group of people go down. Six people on the frontline moved out of sync, and they tripped over each other while the second rank fumbled, trying to pull them back. The entire group was covered in an emerald green light as a wall of the same color filled the gap. The second rank to the left and right dealt with the monsters who had made it through the temporary gap quickly, and the group was healed and then shoved back into formation, the wall dropping and allowing the monsters to pile against them.

"We still have a few people who haven't adjusted to holding their weapons in the right hands," Harper commented. "It'll be so much worse when we switch everyone to their left, though."

Ed nodded. On a battlefield like this, there wasn't room to accommodate the lefties. "You train them to fight with both hands?" He asked.

"You never know when you might lose a hand, or worse, an arm," Harper replied. "If it's just one of you, a group can switch to their other hand without creating a gap or an imbalance in the line. It's not a common occurrence, but forcing people to gain at least basic competence with both hands has saved lives in the past."

The Romans probably hadn't worried about that, Ed mused. They would have just pulled the wounded back and filled the gap or pulled the men in tighter. They didn't have the ability to regrow limbs, nor could they heal that sort of wound instantly. Apparently, if you aligned the missing limb with the stump perfectly, a healing spell could reattach it if it was cast quickly enough. The problem was that in the midst of combat, retrieving the limb and holding it perfectly wasn't often feasible. Most of the time, the healing spell landed, and the wound closed, leaving the limb missing until a regeneration ritual was cast. Which reminded him of a question he'd meant to ask.

"With the Dark Pantheon, where do you get your healing and regeneration spells from?" Ed asked.

"Healing can come from Gaia, Orin, Willoweep, the four Elemental gods, Logos, or Mor'Noctum," Yorrick replied. "Reincarnation is specific to Mor'Noctum, and Vi'Radia, although we'd rather not have any priests of Vi'Radia wandering around."

"The Goddess of Darkness has healing and reincarnation?" Ed was a bit surprised at that revelation.

"She does," Yorrick grinned. "Keeping in mind I'm not a member of the clergy, but from what I understand, Mor'Noctum and Vi'Radia are very much opposite sides of the same coin and follow a different set of rules than the other gods."

"Alright then," Ed muttered.

"You've pretty much seen what you'll see here," Harper said. "The entire day is just more of the same, so if you'd like, you can visit the fifth floor next."

"What about the second, third, and fourth floors?" Ed asked.

"Those are kept suppressed, which is what allows for wave conditions on the first floor," Harper replied.

The monsters on the fifth floor were rat-like creatures the size of Shetland ponies. They had long, sharp tusks and a club-like tail with bony spines sticking out of it.

The ranks of people here were arranged in a similar fashion, but now there were groups of people just behind the spearman wielding staves. Some of them were healers, while others were conjuring shields around, or even in front of, the front line. Further back, archers and offensive casters were working to thin the ranks of the never-ending wave before they reached the warriors holding the front line.

"By the time they've reached level four, people have begun to specialize," Harper explained. "Some of them discover that they thrive at the forefront, while others prefer to strike the monsters while they're distracted. Some find themselves drawn to healing, others to protection, and finally, some to attacking tactically from afar. No matter the preference, they're all trained in the first two lines, as well as in archery, before they're permitted to take their second level."

"So the people down there are what, levels two through four?" Ed asked.

"Yes," Harper replied.

"How long does it take, on average, for someone to get through this training?" Ed asked. "I know they have to be raking in the crystals with as many monsters as they're killing."

"On average, about six months," Harper stated. "It varies by person, of course, and we don't allow people to advance until we're satisfied with their basic competency, so by and large, it isn't a question of having the crystals."

"Most of them have close to three thousand crystals by the end of their training," Yorrick added. "That's after paying their taxes, which are higher due to having the instructors present, as well as their day-to-day living expenses. Your people have less of a burden, so I expect they'll have closer to five thousand."

"That makes offering them Affinity Crystals make more sense," Ed said as he considered the numbers.

Overall, the people in this Dungeon were probably killing monsters at double the rate they would have in Glacier Valley's Dungeons. They also required the time of two dozen high-level people, or at least high enough level that they could prevent any deaths, which was certainly an opportunity cost, as those people could have been earning crystals as well, likely at a much higher rate. The Dungeon certainly required more high-level supervision than the Dungeons in Glacier Valley.

"Honestly, the Crimson Bulwark prides itself on running under tier and under level, so the Empire really does have a steady supply of them," Harper explained. "It's rare for someone who doesn't have a natural Affinity to not either pay, or borrow, for an Affinity Crystal."

"For those with a natural Affinity, it's highly recommended they double down with an Affinity Crystal, if available," Yorrick added.

"I don't suppose my government could negotiate to buy some of those in bulk?" Ed asked. He was well aware of the drastic increase in power an Affinity Crystal offered, and he often regretted not using one himself. At the time, he'd decided that as he wasn't ever likely to be on the front lines, those limited resources should be reserved for those who were.

"Unfortunately, no," Yorrick replied. "I anticipated this question, and the Emperor decided, and was unanimously supported, that the Empire could not, in good conscience, sell Affinity crystals without knowing to whom they are going. Selling them to your government would be abdicating our responsibility to ensure they don't end up in the hands of those ill-suited for their power, and as you know by now, the Empire rather prides itself on personal responsibility and accountability."

Ed repressed a sigh. He'd been instructed to ask, but after listening to Yorrick go on and on about how the Empire functioned, he hadn't held out much hope.

"How many of our people have used your Affinity Crystals?" Ed asked.

Yorrick looked to Harper. "I'd say sixty to seventy percent, although as they level, the curve gets higher. By the time they take their path, the number is a bit over ninety percent. You should probably know that we've found about five percent of them unsuitable," Harper stated.

"When you say unsuitable," Ed trailed off.

"I mean that they exhibit certain traits or tendencies that have, historically, been shown to respond rather poorly when handed true power," Harper said firmly. "I've read through some of your psychology books, and I believe that the terms are megalomania, sociopathy, and psychopathy. Narcissism is a borderline issue, but when compounded with others, can also be a problem."

"Technically, there is no expectation of privacy here, as you don't have doctors as we would recognize them," Ed began carefully, "so would it be possible for you to provide a record of those who have been deemed unsuitable? Just so we can keep an eye on them," he finished.

"Of course," Harper agreed, "we've been keeping a list for that exact purpose. While we don't condemn anyone for their impulses," she grinned wickedly, "we aren't unaware of the damage unchecked impulses can cause. We keep an eye on our own citizens in much the same fashion."

"How often do you have problems with those people going mad with power and hurting people?" Ed asked.

"I daresay less often than Greenwold," Harper spat with a shake of her head. "We have outlets for their impulses, safe ways to express their urges that don't hurt anyone, save themselves if that is their particular need."

"With magic," Yorrick stepped in, his voice calm, "there are few needs, no matter how violent or perverse, that can't be accommodated. Summoners and Illusionists handle the most depraved, allowing those who need to torture, murder, or rape, an outlet which doesn't cause any actual harm. The people who specialize in those sort of scenarios are often afflicted themselves, in the opposite manner, needing to be on the receiving end of that sort of treatment. The costs are reasonable, and the results speak for themselves, as our rates for violent crimes of that sort are less than a hundredth of a percent annually."

"Those who do commit those sorts of crimes are forcefully reincarnated and sentenced to delve at level zero until they've paid restitution, at which point they are geased to never indulge their urges again," Harper smiled grimly. "Most make it two years, three at the outside, before paying for a personality wipe."

Ed jerked in a sharp breath. "A personality wipe?" He asked carefully.

"It's a complicated and delicate four-fold ritual, involving reincarnation, memory alteration, flesh sculpting, and matrix manipulation," Yorrick explained. "It involves reincarnating while at the same time altering every memory involving those urges, as well as physically altering the brain while tying the changes to the matrix which is recorded by the reincarnation. It's much more common for people who are having trouble controlling themselves to subject themselves to the procedure before they commit a crime."

"Christ," Ed muttered.

"It's the best solution we've been able to come up with," Yorrick shrugged. "I've looked into your criminal justice system, and you might consider adopting the same sort of tactics." His grin returned in full force. "Of course, given the number of people you have incarcerated, you could make an absolute mountain of mana crystals just by having the criminals in your jails delve at level zero for the remainder of their sentences. You could even offer to allow them to level up if they took a non-combat, socially beneficial path. You're going to need a lot of craftspeople given your population size," Yorrick finished.