When I left for the Convention Center, the afternoon sky was hazy, with the sun breaking through in scattered beams. The air carried that warm, humid weight that promised storms sooner than later.

  My first stop was the Convention Center at the university side of the main room. I wanted to talk to the people there about using a meeting room and how much more help we could give them. They were far more organized than when they’d first set up a couple of days ago. Becoming part of a government agency had something to do with it. That meant funding, supplies, and better access to outside groups.

  The Army half was mostly people sitting at computers, talking to each other or someone over their headsets. They were all wearing camo, but only the few guards had guns.

  Their new head was Dr. Lawrence Peters, chair of EU’s Information Systems and Computer Science department. I didn’t know him, but I’d heard of him. I was certain he’d heard plenty about me. After a few minutes of introductions and feeling each other out, I got down to business.

  “Dr. Peters, I’m here for a few reasons.” I ticked them off on my fingers.

  “First, I want to know what you’ve learned from our dungeon expedition yesterday.

  “Second, I’d like to see if you or the center will allow us to use one of the convention center’s meeting rooms for a guild meeting.

  “Third, can you help those of us who still have to make a living keep doing so, while also advancing our knowledge of the Game and System? That means continuing to fight spawns and running dungeons.

  “Fourth, is anyone doing a sociological…or maybe anthropological…study of guilds? How they form, their culture, how they grow or fail.

  “Last, I want to talk about how we can work together, if and when infrastructure breaks down.”

  “You’ve been thinking about this, haven’t you?” he asked.

  “Ever since it started.”

  “I know. You said some of this the first day at City Hall. Harry listened. He’s been reminding us daily about what you said. He’s persistent. He shaped most of what we have here. Now that we’ve classified and correlated a mountain of game data, we’re working harder on the rest of what you mentioned.”

  He gestured toward a small group of chairs. “Let’s sit and talk about it, OK?”

  “Sure. No problem with that.”

  The chairs looked borrowed from an executive meeting room—dark leather, padded, comfortable enough that I could have sunk into them.

  “Now,” Peters said, “your first question is more than I can answer quickly. The information your party provided was very good. The idea of 3D mapping is already underway. For now, they’ll only be doing hallways until we have people trained to map rooms after they fight through them.”

  “You’ll need a party that can defeat anything in there first,” I said. “Are you thinking about us, or growing your own?”

  “Both, actually. The first set of rooms has already been done. The first transverse corridor wasn’t a problem. We have a student who’s now a Level 3 Fire Mage. Barely. He leveled in the fourth room.”

  “Good for him.” I thought about the next row of rooms. “Depending on what else is in the party, they might be able to handle it.”

  “He wants to stay with the party he’s in. I’m sure you could take him further, but his chances of being carried all the way through the Boss Room are…none, according to your reports.”

  “I agree. If anything got through to him, he’d die after the second or third hit. He might survive with potions, maybe if Ingrid were another level higher. We barely survived. We were mostly Levels 6 and 7. We gained levels on that trip.”

  “There are people working on the mathematical chances of surviving each encounter,” he said. “It’s based on player level and party composition. Computers are very good at running those kinds of simulations.”

  “I’m sure they are.”

  “Before you go in again, I’ll put you in touch with one of our grad students leading the project. We should have preliminary results sometime this afternoon.”

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  “Thank you. That should make the next time easier until the Dungeon changes things or opens level two.”

  “Do you think it will change what’s there?” Peters asked.

  I glanced around. No Avatar, but I knew it was listening. It was always listening. “I know it’ll eventually open the next level. I have no clue how deep it can or will go. Can it change what’s in any specific room? I’m certain it can. Will it? Or when? Sorry, I don’t know. It’s not like I can just ask the dungeon and it’ll tell me.” I hid a smile behind my hand, pretending to be thoughtful.

  That got a laugh out of him. “If anyone could do that, it’d be you. If you ever do, PLEASE tell us what it says.”

  “You are assuming I’d survive the encounter,” I laughed along with him. He didn’t think I already had that question answered. There are some things that need to be kept secret.

  “I like your idea of studying guilds. I’m sure we can find people…maybe degree candidates…who’d love something new to study. If we combine enough of those studies, we’ll get solid information on social dynamics. I’ll send that around and up to federal as well.”

  Pausing to consider my second question, he said, “We have the whole building, partially for military security reasons. I don’t see any reason Eddington’s guilds, specifically the town or county guilds, can’t use the rooms. If we’re studying guilds, I think the cost would be an observer to record what happens.”

  I hadn’t considered that. But I’d suggested the meetings here, so it was fair. “I think some guilds might pass on it, some might not care. Researchers can join a guild, but then they’re going to have to be active. A guild I know removed two members for not being active. That means they play their class and level up. That goes for you and everyone in the GRA.”

  “Your Irregulars are the top of the list to study. You know that?”

  “I know. We don’t have room unless someone shifts guilds. We’re likely to level up as a guild sometime this week, which will open more slots. That also opens the option for guild mergers. We’ll see what happens then.”

  “That sounds good to me. I’ll talk to the center coordinator. What time would you like?”

  “If you can make it for 10:00 tonight, that should work. One of ours gets off work around 9:30. We’ll only need an hour, maybe an hour and a half. Thank you.”

  “I’ll let you know.” He hesitated. “I don’t know about paying you for doing what you’d do anyway. I’ll run that up the chain and see what they say. You’re right, it may be even harder later. That’s the best I can do right now.”

  “I thought that’d be your answer, but the idea came up and I said I’d ask. Thank you.”

  We stood up, shook hands, and as they say, I left the building.

  Outside, the air carried the faint smell of diesel from an Army truck idling nearby. I climbed into my van, the seat warm from sitting in the sun, and checked the city website for open spawn sites. I picked a couple of different ones and one of my usuals. I’d missed one with everything else this morning. Time to go hunting.

  The second spawn group took some tracking. They’d wandered outside their usual area. Worse, it had a Shaman. And I didn’t have a Healer. This was going to hurt.

  Deciding to go all macho on them, I hit the Shaman first with an enhanced MANA BLAST. The explosive shot knocked it backward and down. While the others turned toward the blast, I cast another enhanced MANA BLAST at that group to include the Shaman.

  COMBAT STATS showed the Shaman was nearly dead and the Kobolds halfway there. I raised a MANA WALL and finished the Shaman with a MANA BOLT. He died. The Kobolds collapsed to another MANA BALL, and the Goblins weren’t looking too healthy either. As pure melee fighters, they weren’t much trouble.

  When they hit my shield, I added MANA ARMOR, drew my sword, and pulled the second one from INVENTORY. I hadn’t bothered to enchant it yet. “I’ll do that when I get home.”

  I thrust, the rapier punching through Goblin skin. Reversing stance, I struck it with a tip slice at its neck. Blood sprayed across my shield wall.

  The other Goblin got wise and ran around the shield. He caught a MANA BOLT for the effort. I rushed him, cutting with my rapier as he turned to swing.

  My legs burned from running over uneven ground, so I planted myself. His two-handed club swung at my head, and I lunged low beneath it, driving my blade through his loincloth.

  The scream was raw pain, not words. "Apparently, Goblins are built the same way we are." A quick MANA BOLT put him down for good.

  I’d never checked to see if Goblins were anatomically the same as humans down there. Apparently, they were. A quick MANA BOLT ended his pain forever. 130 Shields and a Crude Sword were all I got from them. The Shaman didn’t even have a staff.

  “Cheapskates!”

  And a few more experience points.

  WHY DO YOU DO THIS? YOU COULD GAIN MUCH MORE IN THE DUNGEON.

  “That’s true,” I told the Avatar without looking back at him, or it. “The loot and experience aren’t my main reason for doing this.”

  WHY DO YOU DO THIS?

  Finally turning, I said, “This is practice. I build my fighting skills and reaction speed. I test weapons and tactics. I measure how much MANA I need to kill creatures of certain levels. Today, I tested my new sword. It handles reasonably well. When I enchant it, and add a little weight to the pommel, it’ll do better.”

  "I wonder if the STORE has heavier pommels I can swap out?"

  THESE THINGS ARE UNDERSTOOD AND WITHIN THE TEACHINGS. DO THE OTHERS DO THIS?

  “Some do; some don’t. Some do it part of the time. Others do it more than I do.”

  It stood silently for half a minute, then vanished.

  When I finished the rest of the spawns, I headed home. It was already edging into late lunchtime, the sun high and hot, the smell of Megan’s flowers drifted to me from her back yard.

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