Buttopia
patreon
Chapter 61: Desert Camping for Four
🕑 Added 2024-12-26 23:38:42 +0000 UTCIt had taken several hours, but we had managed to carve up a few parts of the monster and even found many of the shards from the dungeon core. It was too bad we’d destroyed it, but I wasn’t even sure it would be safe to try and transport that level of a core. After my success with Corey, my mind had wandered several times to the idea of just what level of partnerships I could form with willing cores and my new abilities. Hopefully, we would be able to expand past the three in my possession one day. I wasn’t sure when that would be, though, as our time in this world was nearly up.
If I got so lucky, I would love a return visit. There were still so many books to read, but that assumed they would still even be here under the new management. Plus, the level of luck that allowed me to go anywhere after we returned to Earth felt like something I had long spent to even get this far. The brothers spent all of the return walk so far entirely focused on their own progression paths, and while I was happy for them, the silence was forcing me into my brooding anxiety, something I never enjoyed. Why hadn’t that ever happened back home? The silence of my home always seemed so relaxing before. What had made that change?
A memory of my kids when they were younger flashed into my mind. We had spent the day exploring some of the trails in the Huron National Forest while Laura visited her brother. During the whole trip, we all talked about the various animals we saw. Tom and Alex kept arguing about the frogs they heard and which one had made which call. I pointed out several bugs and a couple of chipmunks. It had been a fun day, one of my favorite memories of the kids before the divorce. So that was it, was it? That explained a lot of my eagerness and enjoyment of being around these two. I already had realized they reminded me of my kids, I just had realized how much I had missed that.
No matter what else happened back on Earth, I was going to do everything I could to repair that relationship. It was an unrealistic claim, as there were plenty of very possible things that could stand in the way of it, but I didn’t care. It was an important vow, and I would stand by it somehow.
“Guys, sorry to interrupt, but the sun is starting to set. I think it’s time to break out that tent before the birds make our night miserable,” I said, noticing the deeply lengthening shadows. While I was confident that we could handle a horde of them, the idea wasn’t a pleasant one. A nice long rest sounded a lot better. Plus, there was the food I had tossed into my storage, which would be good right about now.
“Oh yeah, sorry, was plotting out my crop space plans. Hey Dave, how much area do you have on Earth? We aren’t going to have much in the way of a mana flow, so I figure I’m going to need to get a lot of mana crops growing to at least supply our home until we can build that up further,” Cecile asked. While I did have a lot of land, I wasn’t sure how great it would be for farming; then again, I had no idea how well magical crops needed arable land. The idea of planning out our base of operations from my house was something else altogether and a topic I wasn’t sure I was ready to explore yet. It just seemed too hopeful even for me.
“I’ve plenty of land. We can figure something out,” I said, hoping to end that topic for now.
“Great. I’ll figure it all out once we have some time with it,” Cecile said as he produced the tent from his storage, and we went to work assembling it. An animated intelligent mallet is surprisingly useful when staking down a tent. It didn’t take long at all before we were all comfortable inside of it, setting up our cots and preparing for some well-earned relaxation.
“Thank you all for today. It was a very interesting experience. I appreciate the trust you have all been willing to place in me despite our first meeting,” Corey spoke from the center of the tent, the head of the mallet slowly rotating back and forth as it did so. That seemed like a good sign for our future work.
“I’ll admit, when Dave first started talking about this, I was skeptical, but I think this was actually a great idea,” Elicec said, grunting slightly as he and Cecile laid down in their cot. Some of their wounds must have still been bothering them. I did a quick telemetry check, but there was nothing else I could add to increase their healing speed. I really needed to find a way to rank up my mana orbs faster. That bottleneck was one of the more frustrating ones. I had access to a ton of spells, if only I could actually progress the orbs far enough.
“Glad to have you on the team, Corey,” I followed up on Elicec’s words as I pulled out some smoked meat to munch on before going to sleep.
“Thank you, Dave, Elicec,” Corey said before resting itself on the ground. Did dungeon cores sleep? I’d ask them about it tomorrow. I didn’t want to keep the Twinogs up with their state any longer than needed. Once I finished eating, I laid my head as well and drifted off to sleep.
For once, I woke up the next morning before everyone else. That was a rarity, but thanks to my new shield orb, I was in better shape than they were. That gave me some time to check over my skills. In theory, I was supposed to have a higher cap on them, but I had only tried my attributes so far. Primarily because most of the skills I really cared to spend the points on were mana skills, but there was at least one that was still very useful: malleting.
I scanned over my skills to find I had gained several new ones. I needed to make a habit of doing this nightly. I had two new knowledge skills Myriapodology and Ichthyology. The first, it seemed, applied to centipedes and millipedes, and the second applied to fish. Animal study classifications were very strangely categorized. Would this work the same for Elicec if his world had further branches for fish studies? Another thing I had no idea how it worked. I added a linguist to my list of people’s brains I wanted to pick if the time ever came on Earth to do so.
My third and final of the new skills was forging, mallet, metal. So animal knowledge skills could be as broad as fish, but forging had to drill down this specific? It was possible that my ranks into this were just better than they would be into a broad forging skill, similar to how attributes worked. The more I thought about that idea, the more it made sense. That would actually explain a lot. If I focused further on the knowledge skills, I could probably unlock more specific zeroed-in ones. How did I get a general forging skill then? I wanted that alongside my sub ones. I was able to put a total of fifty ranks into both malleting and forging, so that was certainly an improvement. Interestingly, I wasn’t able to increase my dungeon simulation skill at all yet. What was that tied to? Before I had long to consider it, the brothers had woken up.
“Morning Dave. Ready to head out?” Cecile asked. Corey floated up into the air at his words.
“Yeah, I want to get back to Timon and Smithtown as soon as we can,” I answered.
“Same. I can’t wait to see your world or the looks on the orcs' faces when we send them running,” Cecile responded with a smile. I liked the confidence, and I wished I had entirely shared it.
As we finished our walk back to the bus, I decided to tell the brothers and Corey about the time my children and I had spent in that National Forest. It felt good to share the memory with them, and Cecile followed my story up with a tale of his own. The time their father had taken them deep into the quarry to see a rare gem formation before it had been seized by the dwarves. That was one of the big things they forced the twinogs to do, but despite the ramifications of the story, Cecile told it with the glee of a kid who had had a great time with his dad. His story had made sure my vow had been a good choice. Finally, after several more nostalgia-filled stories, we spotted the settlement and our ride home.
“Oh good, you’re back. I didn’t need Mel telling my ex where I was just because you all died in a desert,” Timon said, greeting us as we walked onto the bus.
“Yeah, good to see you too,” I said as I plopped down into a seat and focused my regeneration back onto my knees. For some reason, they had started to break down again somewhat. Did I have some underlying condition I needed to repair before I could keep them fixed? I had no idea, and my inner vitality skill wasn’t detecting anything, but I wasn’t sure if it worked on a genetic level or not. More reasons to talk to a real doctor at some point.
“So, did you do it? Finally get rid of that desert?” Timon asked.
“We did, and it wasn’t easy,” Elicec answered.
“Damn, honestly, it’s kind of impressive. I mean Mel thought you could and all, but he’s an optimist. We good to head back?” Timon asked. Had he really just called Mel an optimist? Mel?
“Yes,” Elicec answered, and his answer was immediately followed by Timon rapidly accelerating the bus.
“Good, 'cause I really wanna know what Mel’s got planned next,” Timon said as the bus’ acceleration relaxed into a gentle cruise speed. You and me both, Timon, you and me both.
Some of the older models of transport are surprisingly preferred by a few of the drivers out there. They consider being able to feel the terrain around them a benefit to their abilities. Some studies have shown some of the more able drivers to be accurate in this assessment, but this is not universally true and anyone seeking a career in transportation should first learn the current modes of transportation. They will almost always be what their client prefers.
System Paths, Careers in the Spiral by Glarppp
