Chapter Two Hundred and Forty-Three. Vacations.

Chapter Two Hundred and Forty-Three. Vacations.

The reddish cliffs and boulders, dotted with dull green scrub brush, was a drastic change from the evergreens and granite of Thayland. It was also significantly warmer, ninety-one degrees as opposed to the sixty-eight it had been when they'd departed Thayland that morning.

Bob reached up a hand to shade his eyes as he looked around the campsite. They'd gone down a side road at the entrance to the park, and after twenty miles, that had changed to dirt, or more accurately, sand and gravel, road. Five miles after that, they'd turned off onto a two-track, and two miles later, they'd reached a plateau with six campsites, designated by fire pits and metal picnic benches. Two trails were leading away from the campsite, both rather steep. A hot breeze blew across from the southwest, bringing only slight relief from the heat.

None of the campsites had been in use, so they'd claimed the one furthest from the outhouse. Monroe was padding around the outskirts, investigating a whole range of interesting smells.

"Looks a bit like the outback, yeah?" Jessica said as she stood next to him.

"Never even seen a photograph," Bob admitted.

"Parts of it," she assured him.

"Give us a hand with the swags, will you?" Dave's voice called out from behind, and Bob turned to see Dave dumping half a dozen rolled-up swags.

Bob had never heard of a swag before, but the concept was both simple and brilliant. Less a tent and more a sleeping bag with a pole down the middle and hoops at the end, they had thin foam mattresses covering the bottom, and you rolled them up with your blanket, pillow, spare clothes, etc., all inside. Apparently, the 'real' swags were even simpler, but Jessica had procured these. The whole thing rolled up and was three feet wide, and about a foot in diameter. She'd assured them that these weren't really meant to be carried into the outback but deployed from a vehicle, as the whole ensemble weighed about thirty pounds.

Bob picked up the swag Jessica had given him and rolled it out in place, forming part of the circle around the fire pit. Two flexible poles, one at each end and another extending pole across the top, and he was done.

He opened the side flaps, rolling them up, exposing the mesh, allowing him to feel the breeze passing through it. He unzipped the side closest to the firepit and crawled in, zipping it behind him. He could feel the breeze flowing through, and the fine mesh provided a bit of protection from the sun. It was cooler than being in direct sunlight, at least.

Dave and Amanda had enchanted most of the swags, but Bob had opted to have his unadulterated. If he wanted all the conveniences of home, he had his inventory. He wanted to try actual camping.

The swag was one meter wide by two meters long. He'd done the conversion to inches, but in this instance, it was just easier to cave to the metric system. There was room for Bob, and Monroe, assuming the dread beast slept at the foot of the swag, a prospect Bob didn't hold a lot of hope for. Monroe tended to sleep where he wanted and didn't normally take Bob's comfort into consideration.

Speaking of the feline of mass destruction, a saucer-sized paw batted at the mesh, followed by a disconsolate "mreow," as Monroe tried to find a way in.

Unzipping the mesh, Bob let the supersize floofer into the swag. Monroe stepped in, pawed at the mattress for a few seconds, circled twice, then slumped against Bob's legs, forcing him to move them over to the far side lest they be covered by kitty.

"What do you think, buddy?" Bob asked, reaching down to scratch between Monroe's ears. "Comfy enough, right?"

Monroe began to purr, a deep rumbling sound of contentment, which Bob chose to interpret as agreement. They'd managed to follow the timetable for the day pretty closely. It was almost one in the afternoon, and they'd planned to go for a short hike around six or so, once the day started to cool down. Right now, it was time for a siesta.Follow current novels at novelhall.com)

Kellan was enjoying himself.

Bob's world had so much to offer, and he was taking his time to explore it, piece by piece.

"What is this called again?" He asked, reaching for his glass of 'soda,' feeling the sweat on his brow beading up.

"Curry, sir," one of the young men assigned to attend to his needs replied.

Kellan nodded, and pulled out a tablet, which was another marvelous bit of technology, and made a note to obtain the base ingredients, including the seeds needed to grow them, for curry. He paused, then added a note in another column indicating that he was going to obtain a chef as well.

"Marvelous," he sighed happily. While he wasn't above snacking on the occasional animal while in his true form, the truth was that raw meat didn't taste that great. One of the few downsides to his true form was that it took a truly monumental effort on the part of his people to prepare a meal for him properly. In a show of benevolence, he took his meals in his humanoid form.

Pushing his empty plate to the side, he tapped his tablet a few more times, bringing up a guidebook.

"Too right," Jessica agreed, "lots of folks won't even go outback, let alone delve a Dungeon."

"People are people," Bob added, "the numbers will probably shake out pretty close to what's been going on in Thayland, eventually."

"You're pushing to tier seven, right?" Erick asked Bob.

"Yep," Bob nodded.

"Normally, the highest tier and level person is, by default, a leader, if not the leader of any group of community," Erick smiled, "but something tells me you're not interested in that position."

Bob snorted.

"The Queen of England is going to hit tier six any day now," Erick said, "I've heard she's a terror, riding into combat on a giant dog, with a whole pack of them running behind her."

"Battle Corgi's," Dave grinned, "fear the cuteness!"

"With the King coming to Earth, I'm not sure the plan of having the government spin some sort of coverup is going to work," Bob mused, laying out his character sheet.

"Yeah, there are countries attending the U.N. that aren't going to keep it quiet," Jessica agreed.

"But who is going to believe them?" Dave asked, "They'll get carted off to the asylum."

"Honestly, I think enough people are going to want to believe, that one of our D&D recruits is going to spill, and provide some extraordinary evidence," she finished with a smile toward Bob.

Dave frowned for a moment. "You're right," he agreed, "I've heard a few people asking each other why we were bothering with secrecy, and if word starts leaking out from the U.N., they'll stop playing along."

"Repeat after me," Bob's voice was serious. "This. Is. Not. My. Problem." He shook his head. "That's a mantra I've had to adopt. We've put the information into the hands of the governments of our world. At this point, the upcoming apocalypse is their problem. We're only responsible for ourselves and our friends."

"Also, the King is going to save as many of your people as he can," Erick interjected.

"In order to entice them to stay on Thayland and increase his tax base," Amanda rebutted. "Not that I have a problem with that," she continued, "the whole ten percent thing works out to be a great deal."

"That's the King's tax, though," Erick replied. "I know you're all from Holmstead, and Thidwell has a very light hand, but most places have some sort of additional tax. Some of it goes to municipal expenses, some to the Noble house assigned to it, but there's almost always more taxes than just the king's."

"Even so, it's less of a nightmare than our system," Dave said wryly. "When I file my taxes, I have to pay someone who understands the laws involved and agrees to take responsibility if they make a mistake, and then they spend twenty hours or so working on them, or at least that's what they bill me for."

"The bureaucracy involved in having three hundred and thirty million people in the country is massive," Bob agreed. "There are businesses that employ more people than the entire population of Greenwold."

"I don't know how you can stand it," Bailli shook her head, "don't get me wrong, I like these cellular phones and having millions of books at my fingertips with a tablet, but just seeing some of the cities we've driven through, I know I wouldn't want to live shoulder to shoulder with that many people."

"A lot of it had to do with arable land," Amanda said, "although that's become less of an issue in the past century or so."

"With mana crystals, people will be able to grow food anywhere," Bob added. "I figure it'll take about ten tier capped people to build a self-sufficient town, pretty much anywhere on the planet. A Curator, a Druid, a Dimensionalist, a Priest, a couple of Summoners, and three or four people who are at least partially dedicated to crafting. You could build a guild right here," he pointed down, "and with spatial expansion, it wouldn't be any larger than this campsite."

"The world is going to change, that's for sure," Jessica said.