We left the meeting at that potential outcome. The important thing was to have everyone on the same page. If we needed to go at a moment’s notice, everyone should be prepared to do so. Dawdling around wasn’t gonna cut it now. The slightest misjudgment meant you might be next on the chopping block.

  Despite being such a productive discussion, morale didn’t improve. It obviously wasn’t just Jessica that had exhausted their emotional bank. We would take any other issues as they came, and I had ideas that needed to be enacted now, too.

  First was Glenn’s special abilities from his class. The Star material that I had received from the behemoth had a magical affect, and if we could acquire the remaining materials we would have something quite useful at our fingertips. According to Glenn it was possible to create a structure that allowed you to save a spawn point, a literal teleporter.

  At first I thought he was suggesting it was a second-life in the sense you respawned after death. Even though that wasn't it, if used properly, it could still act as a second lifeline. Being able to escape any situation at will was invaluable to say the least.

  It was a well kept secret with only a few of us even knowing about the possibility. Having such a powerful escape tool at your fingertips might make you feel somewhat invincible, or at least take risks that you otherwise wouldn’t. I didn’t want anyone to do something with the thought in mind that they were a cast away from safety.

  That chain of thought brought me back to Evee and her hypothesis—If we set it up somewhere else, leaving the abode at a moment’s notice was possible. Testing the theory that this all ended in a finale of a singular and final wave wasn’t completely suicidal anymore.

  Unfortunately, All of this was useless speculation unless we could acquire the items needed, and that was where the abode skill levels came in. The auction house would have to be extremely useful in this regard, and so I leveled it up two more times to it’s maximum level and gave Glenn instructions.

  “Make a note with the materials you need and list it on the auction house for 1 copper.” Which worked surprisingly well, and it remained listed there as an item called Man’s hand-scribbled note.

  The price was cheap enough that people would surely buy. The idea of being able to communicate over long-distances was too tempting, and if that wasn’t enough curiosity usually did the trick. We ended up listing two or three more hand-scribbled notes with useful information inside, our location and what event was happening in the world where we were. There was no guarantee this demon event was happening the same way everywhere.

  After that, I stepped outside and approached our fortifications. They were thick, but the massive gashes and dents told me that a bigger wave, or more frequent wave would probably break through in just a few hours of extended siege. I didn’t hesitate to upgrade it to it’s maximum level.

  It took a total of 6 skill points, but the fortifications began morphing before my eyes. The dents and gashes vanished at a rapid pace, and then the wall thickened by several inches. The slits grew more frequent and foot long barbed spikes extended outward from the steel. Anything using brute force to attack us would be skewered in place.

  The biggest change took place inside though. There were now three towers that breached the height of the fortification with small platforms on either side, and looked as if they could hold around three people each. Even better was that the towers were clearly fortified as well. The new vantage point was overpowered, and the ability for our ranged to have a full view of the battlefield was invaluable.

  I had 7 skill points left now and had covered the bases I felt were most important. As I spent more skills more and more skill pathways opened up. Some were interesting, but it was clear that us being in the dungeon put us behind the curve. I wasn’t sure how many demon waves we missed while inside.

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  It was already crunch-time now and investing in the structure in terms of NPC’s or quests seemed like a bad choice. I wanted combat ability—immediate strength. In the end, strength was what would bring us out the other side of this mess whole.

  So with that in mind I ignored expanding the size of the abode or any luxury improvements. Recovery was something I pondered on, especially since we were going to be fighting more frequently. Still, even 2 days was enough time for anyone in my group to recover their HP and MP to their max.

  Most pathways seemed like an investment, and I hoped I wasn’t making the wrong decision by not scaling. There was a singular path that caught my eye out of all of them, though. It was five points total and provided more combat prowess.

  The first prerequisite was named Carnage and had three points total to allocate. Each skill was a 10% increase in damage while in the abode for a total gain of 30% damage. Those three points unlocked the follow up skill which was two total points, and had a very ambiguous description. The first skill click granted the abode a skill called Destruction and the second granted a skill called Decimation.

  While Destruction had a cooldown of three days, Decimation’s cooldown was more than five-hundred hours, or somewhere close to three weeks. The discrepancy in their powers must have been massive. Still, if they did anything close to what they sounded like, having them would come in handy at some point in the near future.

  The two remaining points were invested into the quarter master. Partially because I hoped he would begin selling more useful potions or even equipment, but also because I had seen him in combat. If it came down to it, I was sure he could assist in battle in some way. Anything to increase our staying power and keeping our risk of incident low was a good investment.

  After all was said and done, I guessed the abode could take a pounding from a demon wave for days without breach. The quartermaster didn’t have any new items, but he did have new quests available. The idea of a raid was still there as a possible finale to this mess, and I found myself a little excited about it.

  Two weeks wasn’t long, but it also wasn’t short. There were things we could do to get stronger right now. First was our current raid that we originally backed out of—we had 6 newcomers with us now that could use the EXP badly. The promised reward was also a tailored skill book. It would surely become a greater skill book for me and almost all my party, as they would most likely hit level 30 by the time we finished.

  Information about that was crucial, and so I found Jessica. “Did you decide if you’re learning Camouflage?” I asked her. It wasn’t paramount that she did, but the skill would definitely make our scouting easier in the future. “I wasn’t sure if you liked it.” I confessed. The other two skills weren’t great for her either, and her choice outside of waiting was basically only camouflage.

  “It was never a bad idea,” She said. “I just wanted to make sure I couldn’t think of something more useful.”

  “Did you?” I asked. “There’s also the raid. Maybe it’s possible to find something from there?”

  And that caused her pause for a moment, “I already learned it.” She confessed. There wasn’t any regret on her face though, just thoughtful pondering. It seemed there wasn’t much she could think of being more useful than stealth at the moment. Still, this new skill opened a door for us.

  I started to run my plan by her, not leaving anything out about Glenn and the potential raid. As much as it made me uncomfortable, I wanted her to do some scouting by herself. First to check out our original raid quest and determine what she thinks the difficulty might be. But also find a place for Glenn’s new teleporter if we managed to secure the materials.

  I didn’t want our escape to be linked to the abode. We were already there, and if something came in the night or we couldn’t react quickly enough to leave, we would have no way out. The teleporter could be placed close enough nearby to return here on foot if needed.

  We ran it by the party first, and after careful discussion decided it would be fine. Jessica was self-sufficient enough, and I trusted no one more than her in getting this done safely and efficiently. “I’ll be two days maximum, regardless of if I find what we need or not.” She said.

  “Any longer and I’ll come looking.” I said.

  “I’ll leave tonight.” She said. Only after my initial plans were settled did I feel like I could relax, and the exhaustion hit me like a wave.

  Bigger days were coming.