Bob smiled to himself as he watched Jake tear apart another wolf pack.

The UtahRaptor reaching level twelve had done the trick. He could now count on a concentration based summon to take out a wolf pack on its own before succumbing to the damage the pack dealt.

He'd made the decision to stop leveling his Portal spell. It was taking experience away from his Summoning spell and school, and if he wasn't going back home anytime soon...

He could already portal almost two hundred feet. And given that the mana cost for the portal wasn't a flat one, but rather was tier+spell level, the writing was on the wall, math-wise, that he'd reach a point where he wasn't able to cast the spell at all.

He dismissed his UtahRaptor as it finished the last wolf, and summoned another. Taking a step to the right, he heard the howls of a fresh wolf pack and sent Jake after the monsters.

It took Jake three swipes to drop a wolf, so on average it took about thirteen to fourteen seconds to engage and complete a fight. In that time, Jake would end up perilously close to death, but in the past hour, he'd not failed to win the fight once.

Bob did not count wandering bears into that occasion of course. When his early detection system (Monroe), identified that a bear was en route, Bob started dropping effect over time Jake's.

He reached up and stroked Monroe's tail, which was curled around Bob's neck.

"What do you think buddy, another hour or so of this, then off to dinner?" Bob asked.

Monroe didn't answer, although his tail did swish slightly at the word 'dinner'.

Bob nodded. Another hour.

"I should check with Kevin and see if he needs any bears," Bob muttered.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bob tallied his kills as he walked towards the tavern.

Two hours. Nineteen hundred and eight wolves, and forty-six bears. Sixty-five crystals gathered, and not only did he earn the experience to push his Summon Mana-infused Creature to level thirteen, but he leveled his Summoning School up to level three as well.

Bob had given Austan five crystals and was heading towards the Adventurers guild when he came to an abrupt stop.

He shifted Monroe on his shoulder and took a long hard look.

Bob shook his head. That was a T-Rex alright.

A very small one, but a T-Rex none the less.

And it was standing in front of one of the benches outside the Adventurer's guild.

Bob walked around the T-Rex and Eddi leaped up off the bench and grinned.

"I know you said to summon whatever I liked best, and I thought about a bear, but the Tyranasourus Rex just sounded so cool," Eddi gushed as he patted the side of his T-Rex.

Bob sighed and said, "As long as you're happy with it, that's what matters."

Bob looked over the T-Rex.

Honestly, it looked pretty good.

A little too good.

Bob didn't think he was that good of a storyteller.

'Trebor,' he mentally projected, 'Any chance you can explain why there is an incredibly accurate T-Rex that has been summoned by someone who does not, in fact, understand any hard scientific facts about Tyranasuars?'

'When you created your UtahRaptor, the system recognized it as a viable lifeform,' Trebor said.

'And?' Bob prompted.

'And as a result of having identified an unknown but viable lifeform, the System queried the memory scan that was taken, and implemented patterns for all the viable lifeforms you knew of but of which the System was unaware,' Trebor finished.

Bob wasn't entirely certain, but he thought he might feel violated. He had done his best, and continued to try, to forget that the System had effectively copied the entirety of his life, as a reference point for his universe.

'I thought that, unlike Divine Summoning, Arcane Summoning required you to know the specifics of the creature you were summoning?' Bob asked slowly.

'Under normal circumstances that would be true, however, young Eddi is a follower of Logos, the local Deity of Magic and Knowledge, and as such, when he was praying to Logos to make his Tyrannosaurus, he received a gift of knowledge.'

He shook his head. He was not going to get involved with religious affairs of any type.

"Very well done," Bob said to Eddi.

"I love it!" Eddi exclaimed, but then he looked questioningly at Bob, "But I thought it was supposed to be bigger?"

Bob shrugged and said, "I'm pretty sure there is a limitation on the size of the creature that references our size."

"But," he continued at the look of disappointment on Eddi's face, "My UtahRaptor has grown quite a bit as I've leveled up both the spell and the summoning school, so who knows?"

Eddi immediately cheered up.

"Why are you sitting outside the tavern with the T-Rex out?" Bob asked, wondering if his previous incidents with Jake, and now Eddi having a T-Rex, might have caused the Tavern to institute a "No dinosaurs" policy.

"Oh, I'm waiting for the J's," Eddi said, "we're supposed to meet up for dinner here with Harv and Elli and talk about the skills and spells we took so we can strategize, but they had to go home to see their Mom."

"The waiting bit makes sense, but why is the Tyranasuar out?" Bob asked.

Eddi looked at Bob questioningly, and said "Didn't you just play around with your spells when you gained them?"

"I've been messing around with her," Eddi said happily, "and I think I can rig up a saddle!"

"And, and!" Eddi went on excitedly, "you wouldn't believe how far she can jump!"

He patted the side of the T-Rex lovingly. "She's awesome!" He declared.

Bob considered that he had not, in fact, played with his spells. Not really.

"When I came here," Bob said slowly, "Monroe," He turned to display the dread beast, "was stuck in a locked room, and while he had plenty of water, he only had about three weeks worth of food."

Eddi looked at Monroe with wide eyes.

"I was incredibly focused on saving Monroe, so I didn't really take the time to play with the magic, I just devoted myself to getting it leveled up to the point where I could summon Monroe out of there," Bob finished.

Eddi nodded slowly and said, "He's pretty important to you, isn't he?"

Bob smiled as he reached up and scratched Monroe's ruff.

"We've been together for years, he's my buddy, and I'm pretty sure he considers me his favorite human-slave," Bob said.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bob decided to stick to the original plan of gathering enough crystals to have his gear enchanted, despite the penalties imposed on him by his damaged matrix. It was still better than nothing and represented a good habit to form.

Two hours a day, however, was a little too much. The effect that the sense of danger had put him on edge and made him jittery. So he reduced it to one hour a day, which was much more manageable.

He was averaging nine-hundred wolves a day, and fifteen bears, give or take. He spent another hour running, and he marveled at much further he could run now. Another hour was dedicated to situps, pushups, pullups, and other calisthenics. That normally took care of his mornings.

In the afternoons, he went hiking. He could portal out of town fairly quickly, and once he reached a patch of woodlands, he could go for a hike.

His days had fallen into an easy routine that was almost peaceful with the sole exception of fighting the monsters for an hour every day, which would, if given the chance, kill him horribly.

Bob had been following this schedule for two weeks and had gathered two-hundred seventy-five crystals, of which fifty-two had gone to expenses for lodging, meals for both Bob and Monroe, and a crystal a day to Austan.

By ignoring his portal spell, he'd also seen incredible increases in both his summon monster spell, which had reached sixteen, and his summoning school, which had reached four.

Bob's UtahRaptor had become an absolute unit.

Summon: UtahRaptor(Jake) Tier: 5 Size: 5 Level: 16 Weapon Hardness: 21 Hide hardness: 14 Strength: 56 Mana: 35 Armor: 118 Coordination: 56 Stamina: 78 Claw Damage: 268 Endurance: 29 Health: 684 Bite Damage: 252 Intelligence: 25 Movement: 88 Wisdom: 25 Dodge 100 Beauty: 29 Summoning Mastery 1.4 Caster Value / 2 63

A bear adding into a wolf pack fight no longer broke Jake's win streak.

Sadly, Bob wasn't able to increase the spell's level any further until he increased his own level to seven.

And he wasn't ready for that yet.

Bob estimated that it would take him another three weeks to raise his summoning school to level six, as the experience requirement would go from ten thousand a level up to level five, to twenty thousand a level.

Assuming a one hundred crystal a week net gain, that would put him at five hundred crystals, which was well short of his eleven hundred crystal requirement to obtain a full set of equipment.

If he started using portals again, he could extend the time before maxing out his summoning school by another two weeks. At that point, he'd just be slowly grinding up the portal spell and the dimension school, but then he would have to deal with the mounting cost of the portal spell.

All in all, Bob needed to spend either another eight weeks, which would see him fully geared, or another nineteen weeks, which would see him fully geared, and the debt of crystals he owed Thidwell paid off.

And all of this was a small, almost incremental step towards fixing his matrix.

~ ~ ~ ~

Bob shook his head, trying to steer his mind clear of the minefield of mental math that plagued him.

Sure, his matrix was fucked, and he really, really missed his beat-up old kindle and the access to books that it provided, but overall he could honestly say his life was vastly improved.

All he had to do was ignore the calendar that was counting down to the next monster wave, and the deaths it would inevitably cause.

And he certainly wasn't going to devote any thought to trickle of mutterings he heard every day that questioned, in worried and hushed tones, when the Tide was going to come, and that it was certainly due.

If he could also blot out the sight of Bailli, who was missing her right arm from just above the elbow, that would be great as well.

No, life was good, he and Monroe were well fed, and he had his eye on a tiny vacant lot at the edge of one of the fields. He'd found out that it was owned by the Crenshaw's and the average lease for a lot that size was one round, or one crystal, a week.

He'd talked to Jimmi, who had directed him to a carpenter, who indicated he could knock together a one-bedroom, one-bathroom house with a combined kitchen slash living room for fifty rounds, or fifty crystals, although he'd want to see a stonemason about the stove and plumbing and fixtures. The stonemason had quoted him another fifty rounds, or crystals, for the fixtures, but warned him that he'd need an enchanter if he wanted hot water plumbed in. Luckily, he knew a woman...

All in all, Bob had determined that the total cost of his three-room shack was going to be a touch over five hundred crystals and that if he planned to make those sorts of improvements to the lot, that the Crenshaws would require a three-year lease to be paid upfront, although they'd cut him a fifty crystal discount, and bring it down from one thousand and fifty crystals to an even one thousand.

Bob sighed as he equipped his armor from his inventory. Having a home was exp-.

Bob felt something cold, wet, and squishy pressing against the outside of his right thigh.

He very carefully unbuckled his armor and peeled off his pants.

"God damn it, Monroe," Bob muttered as he identified the hairball that had been left in his armor.

The feline of mass destruction was currently curled up into a purrball and napping on his bed, having lost interest in Bob's showering when he'd drifted off into thought under the hot water.

Monroe didn't like their room very much and often disappeared into Bob's inventory space. And apparently vomited up his hairballs there, which meant that inter-dimensional familiars did in fact suffer from hairballs.

Bob hadn't really looked into his inventory recently. He pulled his clothes, armor, staff, and money pouch in and out of it.

So it was with a heavy heart and no small amount of trepidation that Bob closed his eyes, and mentally visualized his inventory.

"Oh, buddy," he said softly.

When Bob had summoned Monroe, he'd noticed that his buddy didn't seem to care about shitting anymore, despite enjoying his new diet of delicious meat chunks. He hadn't thought too much about it, as he took him on walks every day, and if Monroe had needed to go to the bathroom, he would have.

Clearly, Monroe had simply found a convenient and immediately and easily accessible place to do his business.

Fortunately, he seemed to have dedicated the corner of Bob's inventory furthest away from where Bob tended to pile his gear.

There were, however, hairballs everywhere.

Bob sat down next to Monroe and gently rubbed his ears, increasing the volume of the purrmotor.

He felt like shit. He'd just assumed that Monroe had stopped needing a litter box.

"I'm sorry buddy," he muttered as he petted his cat.

Jimmi, besides running the counter at the mill, and being a fledgling pyromaniac, also built furniture. It turned out that he worked at the mill for that reason, as he could pick up oddments and warped and knotted lumber for nearly nothing, and use them for his side business.

Bob stepped back into the shower and turned on the hot water. He wasn't really sure how this was going to work, but he was pretty sure that it was going to be messy and disgusting.

It turned out he was right.

~ ~ ~ ~

Jimmi ended up having something that was almost exactly what Bob needed. Jimmi used several small, copper-lined troughs to soak wood before he shaped and warped it. For the low price of only five crystals, Bob was able to buy one from him. Filling it with sand was free, as the river that cut through Holmstead had a sandy bank downstream.

Monroe having a litter box was priceless.

He'd just have to integrate cleaning the litter box every morning into his routine, which after six years of practice wouldn't be too hard.

Jimmi had also provided one the cushions he'd had made for his chairs, which bob repurposed as a Monroe bed.

Bob put the litter box in one corner, the bed in another, and his spare clothes in a third, and his crystals in yet another. He had wanted to talk to Nikki about how enchanting worked before he had anymore done.

Having sorted out that emergency, Bob headed back to the Adventurer's guild, where he'd planned to have dinner with Harv, Elli, Eddi, and the J's.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Bob had just pulled the tables together and moved the chairs when Harv and Elli walked in laughing and joking, while the others trailed behind, all four of them looking tired, and covered in filth.

Harv and Elli caught Bob's wave and headed over.

Bob had caught up with Harv and Elli a week earlier, and Eddi had figured out his routine and regularly joined him on his morning jogs, asking questions about his T-Rex's diet and environment, but Bob hadn't seen Julli, Jammi, and Jacki since he'd first met them.

While Eddi appeared tired and filthy, he still maintained a sunny disposition. The three sisters, however, appeared quite grumpy.

As they sat down, Bob caught a strong scent wafting off of them.

"You've been on level three I take it," he said as he waved Theo over.

Eddi quickly spoke up, "Rexxy is tearing those frogs apart! It's great!"

Julli favored him with a scornful look while Jammi added, "It is absolutely disgusting, the smell..." she shuddered.

Jacki chimed in, "And there is always something in the water to trip over, even when you're following in someone's footsteps," she complained.

Bob nodded sympathetically and said, "Yeah, I'm not going to lie, that was probably my second worst experience so far."

Monroe chose that moment to drag himself from one shoulder to the other.

The three sisters eyes' all focused on the big Maine-coon as the quiet clicks of the magnets connecting him to his human-servant sounded across the table.

Bob sighed, and slid Monroe off his shoulder, having learned it was easier to do it that way than to lift him off, before placing him on the table.

Julli was the closest and she reached out a hand and started to rub Monroe's chin as she inspected the kitty's armor.

Jacki joined Julli, and Jammi, being too far away, started scooting her chair closer, and asked Bob, "What was that sliding thing he did?"

"Gary from Nikki's developed what he's calling a Makres, which is short for Magnetic Kitty Retention System," Bob said as he pointed to the harness.

"It keeps him in place when I'm moving around but leaves him free to hop off and move around if wants or needs to," Bob finished.

"That's very clever," Julli said as she continued to provide Monroe with the attention he deserved, "If I was considering taking a familiar, this could be very useful."

Jammi said, "We have to take our path first though," as she nudged her sister to the side an inch to be able to reach Monroe.

"How is that going by the way?" Bob asked, "I know I've made quite a bit of progress in the past couple of weeks."

"Oh," Eddi said happily, "we've got almost all of our skills up to level, except for Rexxy of course, and we have all the crystals we need as of yesterday, so we are just building up a reserve as you suggested," he beamed.

"Well done," Bob said hesitantly.

He wasn't sure if it was actually well done or not.

He'd gone from absolutely nothing to level six with several hundred crystals in two weeks.

He knew that he'd rushed things along though.

Harv and Elli nodded, and Harv said, "They've done fairly well, we've only needed to step in once."

Elli shook his head and lowered his voice, "Unlike poor Bailli," he nodded across the room towards a table where Bailli sat alone.

Bob blinked. He hadn't even noticed her sitting there.

He hadn't spoken to her since the last time she'd delivered a meal to him, which made him feel sort of ... bad. Sad? Uncomfortable? Bob wasn't sure, but it made him feel something that he didn't care for.

"I'm going to drag her over for dinner," Bob said as he stood up, turned around and grabbed another chair, and slid it up to the table, before heading towards Bailli.

He walked up to her table and stopped as he struggled to find the right words for this situation. What he ended up blurting out was, "Hi Bailli, would you like to have dinner with Harv and Elli and I? You can pet Monroe?"

Bailli started and looked up at him, clearly having been lost in thought.

She processed his statement and looked past him towards his table.

Bailli took a deep breath, and nodded before standing up and following Bob back to the table, where Bob gestured for her to take his former seat, directly in front of Monroe, and wedging himself into the chair he'd jammed in next to Eddi, who he knew from experience didn't have a solid grasp of the concept of 'personal space'.

She reached out and slowly stroked Monroe, who turned his head to sniff her hand, then flopped over to catch it with a paw, and pulled it up to nuzzle her hand with his cheeks.

Bailli's smile was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.