Buttopia
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Chapter 69: A Nice Dinner
🕑 Added 2024-12-29 01:17:03 +0000 UTCThe kitchen, while mostly covered now thanks to Alex, wouldn’t have been nearly big enough for all of us even if it wasn’t still incredibly drafty. So, instead, we all found places in the living room using whatever spare surface I owned. John had dug out some of the shrimp and vegetables from the freezer and made a surprisingly good stir fry. I didn’t expect Sanquar to complain as I’d fed him many of my leftovers before, not knowing he was intelligent. I was surprised to see both brothers and Timon go for seconds, though. Corey, not interested in the food but having enjoyed working with my daughter, wanted to resume his talks with the other dungeon cores in my System storage. They thought there was some progress at waking up the wasp core.
“So I’ve been thinking a lot about what you told us while I was doing what I could for the kitchen Dad, and I’ve got some questions now, starting with how did you even manage to handle all of that? I mean no offense, but you aren’t great at socializing in the best of times, and uh, you’re a bit reckless with your own safety, so there’s also the fact that you even survived it,” She said. I had left out a couple of the details of the times I got hurt entirely because I didn’t stop to think something through. She was right to question my survival instincts. As for socialization, that was something that I had questioned many times myself.
“Honestly, I think I was running on anxiety and adrenaline for a while there, and as for socialization, how many people did I really interact with closely? Cecile and Elicec helped me. I met Mel because they invited me to a dungeon, and I met Timon through Mel. I do concede that it is a bit more social than I’ve been in a while, but I used to have a whole social group when I was younger, thank you. So I guess the best answer here is I honestly can’t answer it fully,” I said.
“I don’t know if I were thrown into another universe by a bird. I think I’d have handled it a lot worse than your dad here. Then again, I also once got stuck in a basement for a couple of days, so I may not be the best at handling difficult situations,” Maud added. I almost questioned her but decided not to press that topic for John's sake.
“A lot of how I handled it was focusing on getting strong enough to come back here and make sure you two were okay. It was one of, if not my primary motivation, the whole time,” I said entirely truthfully.
“So what’s in store for you now? Let’s say Earth is entirely safe soon. What do you do next?” John asked.
“Good question. I think I want to explore all of this. What kind of weird technology can I build now? It’s one of the few things I’ve felt so passionate about in a long time, so it feels like the right thing to do, and that means I need to push myself as well. But all of that hinges on the idea that the Earth is fine, and until Mel shows up and tells us it is, I’m going to have a hard time trusting in that potential fate,” I said, wishing the man would show up already. I knew it was an unrealistic expectation; we had been separated from him for less than a day at this point, and he had said he had a lot to do. I just did not like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“So, uh, let’s say we wanted in on this, how do we do it? I’m not saying it’s something I want to jump into, but damn, Dad you look like I remember you as a kid, and I haven’t heard you say anything about your knees today at all,” Alex said. I hadn’t considered that question at all. If they wanted a core for themselves, or at least if Alex did I didn’t really know how to help. Was it even possible until Earth was truly part of the Spiral.
“I don’t know how to form a core normally, and I especially don’t know how to do any of it here. Anyone have any input?” I asked the other non humans of the room.
“No reason they can’t, just going to need a decent mana flow to really do it. Your pal Chip might be enough, but more than likely, you need the farmer over there to use his hoe for something other than killing,” Timon answered.
“That’s tomorrow’s plan, Elicec has some reading to do, so I may as well work out the logistics for a good area for a crop of magical plants,” Cecile said. Was my house about to become the only possible place to form a core on Earth? I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that, but that also assumed a lot, like just what would happen to the Earth post-incorporation into the Spiral.
“So it possibly possible, though? Yes!” Maud said, her voice full of thrill. At least someone was excited at the idea.
“Any other questions for the night?” I asked. No one voiced anything, and I saw that most of the plates were empty at this point, which meant sleeping arrangements talk time. “Since it’s getting late, and we should conserve the propane as much as we can, probably best we figure out sleeping arrangements.” One of the many ideas in my head was replacing the propane tank with a mana tank. Considering the amount of energy that had to be used to produce the magic we were capable of, it seemed like a basic mana heating system would be pretty easy to keep fueled. I just had to figure out how to build one.
“I’ll be in the bus, got room for a couple more if anyone wants,” Timon said as he stood up, looking ready to get out of the room already.
“Yeah, we’ll join you. The backseat folds down and can actually fit us. I’m guessing Dave doesn’t have anything like that in here,” Elicec said. I did not. Hell, my bed was only full-sized.
“Alright, well, John and Maud can have my room. Alex, the couch folds out if that works for you. I’ve got a cot in the garage that I’ve slept on a few times. Sanquar, considering you usually live outside, I assume you’re fine anywhere?” I asked after my explanations. He nodded. The house wasn’t big, but it should hold us all reasonably well. There was my bedroom connected to a bathroom, with a second bathroom off the living room. I had a small study slash library that I used mostly for reading these days and a decently large attic that I had planned to someday turn into a bigger library, but that had never happened. The garage was part garage, part workshop, and that was another thing I kept planning to expand and still hadn’t gotten to. Old age creeps up on you surprisingly fast, and that makes moving lumber from an annoyance into a herculean feat, but now, who knows what I might do. The workshop expansion was calling me.
“Thanks, Dad. How cold should we expect it to get?” John asked.
“Eh, it’s not that much worse than winters with your grandparents. There are extra blankets in the closet if you need them. Your sister will need some of what’s in there, probably. Where did you put the cats anyway?” I asked for the first time, noticing they weren’t around.
“I found some old boxes, and we set them up with a bit of sawdust in it for now in the bathroom, guess we can move them to the bedroom,” John answered.
“Yeah, of course, let them sleep with you guys. What are their names?” I asked, glad John seemed to be settling in a bit.
“Sweater and Gordon,” Maud answered. Those were certainly interesting names.
“Well, we’ll need to setup a meet and greet time for them with the rest of us at some point if that’s okay? But in the meantime, I’m going to get some sleep. It’s been a long, emotion-packed day,” I said, standing up to make my own escape.
“Yeah, it has, Dad. Thank you for everything,” John said as Alex nodded along.
“You don’t ever need to thank me,” I said, smiling at them before heading to the garage. Somehow, today had worked out better than I had thought it would.
I took the door from the kitchen to the garage, noticing the patchwork Alex had managed on my way. It looked like she had used some of the broken wall and the cabinet itself, along with a bit of my scrap materials, to get it covered. I was honestly just amazed the orc’s axe hadn’t caused a giant leak. Losing the well pump with everyone here would be a whole different kind of nightmare.
The cot, blankets, and a pillow were all stored in one of my closets out here. It had been a while since I used it, but I had an independent split heating and cooling unit set up in here, so for the few times things got hot enough to bother me, or I was running low on propane and didn’t want to run out overnight I’d bunk up out here. Initially, I had bought it thinking when the kids were out, we might sleep under the stars, but that hadn’t happened.
As I lay down in the bed, I checked through my quests and took a look at just what I had unfinished. It had been awhile since I really went over them.
The fact that I still had the Save the Earth quest cemented my worries that this wasn’t nearly over yet. I still had no idea what to do with the second quest, and until I found a library, I couldn’t do much about the third, either. As for controlling six orbs, no I could not, but I had a hunch on how I could do that. The next three were just a matter of finding either the exploit or dungeon. But that last one? It was new. It had no reward listed with it, either.
What class did I even want? Something that harmonized with my engineering plans, I guessed, but was that even possible? How far-ranging were classes? With no real answers, I let a few fantasies of weird mixes play out in my head as I drifted off to sleep. A day hadn’t passed for Earth since the last time I had slept here, but it felt like it had been forever for me, and I was glad to be home.
I agreed to accompany my friend Grom on a trip to what he called the darkness beyond chaotic space. He didn’t know what we would find out there, but he was tired of it being one of the few things in the Spiral he had never laid his own eyes on. I wonder if, somewhere deep out there, my home still exists. Is there an Earth somewhere in this chaotic space that I once called home?
Ronald Tammen’s Personal Diary
