King of the Mountain

Chapter 75

Resupply And A Final Goodbye

I tell everyone that I need get down to zone 4 and really think about what just happened to check for any loopholes or problems. Once I have my thinking time I will bring them into the loop and they can help me with any ideas. We made sure the reset was done and then teleported down to zone 4 outside of the Dwarven Caverns. It had been more than 500 years since we had been here last, I hope nothing has changed to badly. I approach the entrance to the caverns and notice that the town around the entrance has grown significantly since I was last here.

When I approach the gate I was challenged by the guards.

“Name and business please.”

“Mark Anderson, resupply and visiting anyone still alive that I know.”

“You are claiming to be THE Mark Anderson. The one who helped liberate the caverns over a 1,000 years ago.”

“Yep that’s me.”

“Excuse me sir but if I can have you wait right here I need to pass this up the line.”

“I understand.”

After waiting for just under ½ an hour I could see several dwarves in full regalia hurrying towards the gate. As they approached they slowed down and finally addressed me.

“Sir Anderson, I am sorry to have to do this to you but can you change form to verify your identity. It has been so long since you visited the only dwarves left that remember how you look personally are not strong enough in health to come to the gates to verify your identity.”

“I understand, it has been a while since I came back.”

I shifted into my dragon form and saw the eyes of everyone who was watching get big. It looked like they were hoping it was me, but until I proved it they were not believers. I shifted back into a draconian form.

“Will that be enough to verify my identity?”

“Yes Sir Anderson, and once again I apologize for having you do this.”

“Calm down, I do understand the necessity. Now can I ask is Thane Stoneheart or Gondor still around?”

“Thane Stoneheart the 1st passed on nearly 250 years ago Sir Anderson. His heir Thane Stoneheart the 2nd is now the ruler. Gondor has also passed on.”

“I see, time passes more quickly for some than others. Thane Stoneheart the 2nd, you mean little Jasper Stoneheart?”

“Umm, Sir Anderson you are perhaps the only one that could get away with calling him that. Thane Jasper Stoneheart is now close to 1,000 years old and will soon be passing the mantle of Thane to his own son.”

“Well I better go and meet the new one I guess. Is my house still there?”

“Yes Sir Anderson, it actually has been turned into a museum, but as soon as we heard you could be back we had several dwarves head over to make it livable once again.”

“I appreciate that. After being away for so long it will be good to have something familiar. I also need to stock up on supplies, can you recommend someone who can fill a very large list of needed items and is trustworthy.”

“Yes Sir Anderson, Marblefist Trading Emporium is an expansive trading establishment with stores in zones 1-6. They should be able to take care of any of your needs.”

After teleporting to my dwarven cavern house I started to fill in the group with what I knew.

“Alright sorry I spaced out there for a while. The Great Game has either helped me and by extension all of you a lot, or has set us up for some kind of epic battled. I cannot figure out which one. I can now heal myself through receiving elemental and primal damage. My resistances have gone up to 300%.”

“How is that even possible dad?”

“I don’t know Bruce and that is what worries me. It also gave me the title of Cosmic Entity whatever that means and let out that there is a hard limit of 5,000 for levels.”

“Master that is far from where we are. That means we can still get stronger.”

“Yes Walter it does, but the question is should we? With the bonuses that the Great Game has given me it has implied that I am no as powerful if not more powerful than a level 5,000 being. I have over 5,000 points in all my stats and have bonuses to my HP and MP that quite frankly ridiculous.”

“What do you mean by that dad?”

“I have over 300,000 HP and over 7 million MP and basically I cannot think of a way to spend my MP faster than they can recover. As for my HP I basically could let some of those level 1,000 bosses in zone 7 beat on me all day long and I would recover more HP than they could take away. I am not invincible, but I am pretty close to it and that scares me.”

“Why does it scare you Master.”

“I keep feeling that there is more to the Great Game than we know. I may look and feel invincible now, but what about in the future? Is there some crazy end boss we need to take care of in zone 10? No one who has entered zone 10 has come back. There has to be a reason for that.”

I see where we would need to be cautious dad, but eventually we are going to have to go in.”

“I realize that Elvira, but it is the eventually that keeps me feeling dread. I do not want to go in too early so we are not prepared, but on the other hand I do not want to wait so long we lose our edge and feelings of wanting to help people out.”

“Well can we just set a goal of reaching a certain level before we go in?”

“I think that is a good idea Esmerelda the problem is deciding which level. Remember that we are now over-leveled for the highest dungeon in zone 9. That means earning experience is going to slow way down and leveling will be extremely slow. We averaged almost a level a year this last reset and will probably go down to 1 level every two or three years, next reset unless we find another dungeon that will multiply experience for us.”

“Well I think we should at least get you to level 3,000 dad just to be safe. We all rely on you, if something goes wrong you can recall and store all of us and just escape, so we need you to be strong enough to protect all of us.”

“3,000 it is then. Once we reach that we will cross over.”

The next couple of weeks were both restful and awkward. There were very few dwarves that were still around that I knew personally. Those that were had aged quite significantly. This was the first time I had run into this problem. I knew theoretically that my lineage and infinite life span would cause these problems someday, but theoretically being prepared for something is different than experiencing it in real life. I renewed my friendship with the dwarves, spent a lot of mithral coins and picked up 500 years of supplies from them. My staying here served no more purpose and I decided to visit Earth one more time before my final plunge into zone 10.

To tell the truth I was a little nervous. I had not contacted anyone on Earth for over 500 years. I did not know the situation and even worse I did not know how my own family was doing. My daughter had secured a dragon bloodline so in theory she could be still alive, but I just did not know. Enough putting it off. It won’t get any easier. I teleported back to Earth and was greeted by the familiar sight of people pointing weapons at me.

“’Name and purpose.”

“Mark Anderson, resupply and visiting my home planet.”

“Thank you sir for allowing us to do our job. We all recognized you as soon as you teleported in. It is an honor to meet you in person.”

Now I was a little curious.

“How did you recognize me.”

“Your picture and memorization of it and your companions is required material at the teleportation academy sir.”

“I did not know there was an academy.”

“Yes sir, it was founded around 700 years ago to help fill the need of training and recruitment of the teleport network guards as each of the 4 great powers were starting to expand seriously into their new planets.”

“That makes sense I guess, well tell whoever needs to know that I am back, but I would prefer not to be contacted for at least a week as I settle back in.”

“I will pass along the message sir.”

With that taken care of I teleported directly into my Antarctic Lair and started to look around to make sure nothing had changed. Other than some dust it looks like they left everything alone like I asked. Sitting on the table was an envelope was a letter with just Dad written on it. I opened it carefully and read through the contents. It was hard not to cry just a little as I was reading.

My daughter Nicole wrote about how she had watched her kids grow up and how she had become a grandmother. None of her kids, grandkids or husband had particularly long lived bloodlines and over the years she could see them aging while she remained the same with her dragon bloodline. Finally, her husband passed away from old age. There were no regrets, but she said she could not stay and watch that happen to the rest of the family. She wrote that she understood why I spent so much time away now knowing that she would still be alive hundreds if not thousands of years past her kids and grandkids.

After her husband died Nicole decided to immigrate to Segmentia, the world I set up for those with dragon bloodlines. She told me not to worry about her and that she would see me in the future as we were both going to live a long time and she just knew that I would not be able to resist a dinosaur planet. I won’t lie, I cried while I read that letter as it might be the last contact I had with my biological daughter. Suddenly staying on Earth for a while did not seem very appealing.

I decided that after I we made some plans and resupplied again that I would officially break off ties for being in charge on Earth. I mean I really had not done anything other than boss people around and that was over 1,000 years ago. Earth would always be my first home and I would want to maintain my lair here, but I was more and more called to other worlds and exploration. I longed for the day when my group and I could just wander around exploring.

I figured it would take 500 to 1,000 years to explore any world thoroughly and I owned two. I had enough funds to buy 50 more right now, and I still had things I could cash in. So I was set to feed my wandering soul and sense of exploration as soon as I finished what I thought had become my personal quest. I wanted to be able to visit back just to see how things had changed after a significant amount of time also. I was hoping that someday I would go from curriculum into being a legend or folk tale. How cool would that be.

I met with the current council and officially made them the rulers of Appalachia Kingdom. I had the rules rewritten that during any military emergency that the head of the military would be the sole leader to cut through red tape, but such a situation could not be for more than 5 years without a re-approval from the council. I finished my orders of 500 more years of supplies. Along with what I got from the dwarves I should have slightly more than 1200 years worth of supplies if needed and I could supplement them with what I find. Once that was done I left my teleport guard force 10 million mithral coins and told them to buy a planet of their own and then I transferred back to zone 9. I had 245 or so years left in this reset cycle that I could use to level up still.

The first reset was as bad as I feared for leveling. In 245 years we only managed 122 levels and that was after we found a double experience dungeon around year 112. We spent the reset in the safe zone and went back out once again. This cycle was a little better and we managed 143 levels. One more cycle should get us to the goal of level 3,000. The final cycle we found a dungeon early that doubled experience and we managed to get another 120 levels. This puts us right where we wanted to be.