Mama was smiling as Belinda and Milo walked into the dining room. She she had just placed a set of covered dishes from the oven on the table. Steam and enticing smells coming from them as she removed the glass lids. Big Big was sitting at the end of the table watching them come in, a slight smile on his face. The younger children and other denizens of Downtown had already eaten and left, based on the pile of dirty plates and dishes on a nearby sideboard. With so many people on different schedules, she often served two dinners.

"Come in and sit down, you two. Good to see you out of those pods, or taking meals in an office somewhere. Busy is good, but you need to eat right. We were just about to eat ourselves. It's just the four of us. The rest will be back later to help with cleaning up later. Rusty is excited about something he made and everyone ran off to watch it. I've got a lasagna, fresh greens from the garden and two apple pies for us."

She busied herself with serving and Milo focused on his food. Belinda let him eat. Getting Milo to the table could be difficult but once there, he remembered how much he loved good food and could eat forever. His body, and to some extent, hers, could burn through an enormous amount of calories.

Big Butch finished his first plate as fast as Milo and took two pieces of pie before speaking. "I've heard that there's something bothering you, Milo. Need to talk about it?"

Milo shrugged. Belinda elbowed him in the side and said to him, "I can tell you're bottling up something. Let it out. You'll feel better."

He shoveled down another bit of lasagna and thought while chewing, "I'm not really sure where to begin."

She rolled her eyes. "How about the part where you're gathering up everyone you know in the game and inducing a frenzy of work and innovation, building an industrial military economy in a fantasy world. You've got hundreds of people building better bears, better cannons, better drills, and better everything. Not to mention the miners digging ore and the smelters working day and night to supply the metal you need to build all of it. There's a beehive of activity going on, and it's in overdrive with your brothers and sister involved, let alone the rest of our gang who can create their own brand of chaos."

He looked at her for a moment, and shrugged. "Oh, well, yes. I'm worried about things in Genesis. The world may seem like a game, and each player wanders around and has adventures, but the world keeps spinning. Limburger Hollow was almost wiped out or enslaved by the spiders, and the spiders are still out there. They have an empire with several major cities, and have taken over at least one Hollow and added it to the other cities run by slaves. We beat them once, but what if they come back? And players are always a wild card. They tried to raid the Hollow once, and could do it again. By building strong ties with the dwarves and exporting food and Deep Copper ore, the Deep Rock Engineers have a vested interest in helping to defend the Hollow, and have signed mutual protection agreements."

He started using empty plates and utensils to draw a map for Big Butch and Mama of the underground areas. "And with the discovery of Cracked Rock, those ties are even stronger. Ratkin are becoming Engineers, and expanding their knowledge of metalworking and mining. The dwarves lack a lot of magical knowledge, but some are taking classes at the Tower of Strife to better understand Storm Mana and its applications. The two groups are stronger when tied together in mutual support. It just makes sense."

Mama looked at Big Butch and Belinda, confirming for Milo that she had some sort of secret communication process he still hadn't figured out.

"I'm sorry, Milo dear, but it doesn't make sense. Your timing is off. If you were worried about another another invasion, you'd have been worried a long time ago about the spiders, right after they attacked. But you weren't. You went exploring, visited big cities and had adventures. Lord knows you need to have some fun. But you weren't worried about spiders."

Milo added another plate, on a lower level, then a big platter off to the side. "When I was in the Myconian city, we got visited by three people from the city of Blothbezmadan. They weren't nice people. Reminded me a lot of the people high up in the worst corporations. They acted like they could do anything they wanted and no one could stop them. And they called me a slave. They think all ratkin are slaves. They consider all of Limburger Hollow to be potential slaves. They were rude, insulting, and trying to steal a bear that didn't belong to them. I got mad, and wasn't thinking hard about the long term consequences. It was a long and nasty fight and they all ended up dead."

Belinda shook her head, "They didn't give you much choice. We've talked about this. You either had to let the bullies win and give them Ursula, or fight. They were the aggressors."

"They were. And I took great delight in showing them how wrong they were. But I've learned a lot more about Blothbezmadan. It's huge and part of a group of ancient evil cities like Gadobhra, the one I visited, except it isn't in ruins. The size of it dwarfs the Hollow or the Engineers. If I've pissed them off, they may send more people, or maybe a whole army. I want to be ready if they do. I don't think diplomacy will work well. Their society is built on individual strength, wealth, and the strength of the guild you belong to. Greeting them with cannons will do a lot more than a basket of puff cakes."

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Big Butch was nodding in agreement. "It's like the orcs I was fighting when I was a merc. They respected strength on the battlefield and you could even get to know them between fights. But it always came down to another fight."

Milo was happy to see Big Butch understood part of his plans. Sadly, Mama and Belinda were still waiting for more explanations, and unconvinced. He continued, "And I have to keep the Scavengers and the Engineers busy. They almost tore Shadowport apart without trying to hard. Dwarves have a lot of energy. Some of it is getting used up just by throwing them together and letting the romance thing happen, but we need them working side by side for that. The Scavengers want to rebuild their fleet and find the old wrecks and treasure. The Engineers want to build and innovate. A secret pirated shipyard with a fleet of submersible warships is too big of a dream come true for them to pass up. They'll be busy with that project for decades. And they can do a lot of good. The dwarves don't like slavery, and the slave traders use the seas to transport people and trade. I read a book about Captain Nemo a few times. If one submarine can do that, think of what a dozen can do."

Belinda nodded, "So, you're worried about a nasty city of slavers somewhere in the deep down, and want to get rid of slavery on the high seas?"

"Yes to both those things. Originally, I had big plans for helping Captain Squint take out Fort Hopeless. He's been planning it forever. But Bork did that on his own, so I had to have something else to focus the dwarves on."

"I almost believe you..."

Milo smiled.

"Almost. You could have kept the dwarves focused on building their secret base, tunneling to the sea, scavenging wrecks, and rebuilding the Queen. Why bring up this lost treasure and an island full of dragons? You hate eels, don't like being in the open or out on the water, and you don't care about money."

He looked at her, "The Engine. It wants this quest to happen. It didn't go away when I killed the character Brian created, or when they erased all of his code. I think by then the Engine had decided it liked the quest. It recreated the worldwide quest and expanded on it. The Eye of Wonder has popped up a couple of times now, according to the people talking about it on the game forums. But the bulk of the people who have special classes from it are related to me. If we don't work on the quest, the Engine will do things to involve us, one way or another. I'm hoping that having a few hundred Scavengers and Engineers involved fools it and it focuses on the other people who have found it. Besides, the Scavengers love the idea. It's hopeless to think about fighting dragons, but that just made them more excited."

He grinned, "And creating advanced anti-eel artillery will be fun. You just know it's going to come in handy."

Big Butch was grinning, "I may need to get back in the game if you're going Dragon Hunting. That does sounds like fun." Mama was glaring at him. "Well, when I have all my work done and we have some time. There's a lot of work to do up in the habitat with the new schools we're setting up. Having the money to get things accomplished is making a huge difference. Back in the old days we only had some old computers for the kids to take classes on." He looked at Mama, hopefully. "Maybe during spring break?"

She sighed, "Yes, dear, during spring break you can go kill dragons with the kids and overthrow evil empires. Hopefully Milo leaves you something to do."

Milo wished it was that easy. "Don't worry, always something popping up in Genesis. And Bloth is going to be difficult. I need to know more about it."

Belinda surprised him by asking, "So, when are you leaving?"

"How did you know?"

"Come on. Really? An unexplored city full of mad alchemists and secrets? You're itching to go visit it. You just want to fix the bear and build a few hundred cannons first. And speaking of the bear, have to you talked to Ursula?"

"Some. Why?"

"Why? You have the Engineers building dozens of prototypes, some with massive cannons, or other advanced weapons. One looks like a train. Some are on wheels or run like a real bear. Did you ever asked her what she wants to be?"

Milo went silent and unmoving. Then looked sheepish. "No, I didn't. I knew she wanted to be fixed, but never really talked about what she wanted."

Belinda sighed, "I'm a little sensitive to that. I was stuck in a hospital bed for half my life and a wheelchair the rest of the time. People made a lot of decisions about me without asking what I wanted. And my Stepfather was worse. I begged him, but got ignored."

Mama put a piece of pie in front of each of them. "Good, we got some things settled. We know what's worrying Milo in the game. He can go explore an evil city and you can talk to your bear friend about her future and everything will be fine. Now eat your pie and tell Mama about the rest of it."

Milo froze solid, again, then slowly raised his eyes to Mama, "Um, the rest of it?"

"Yes, dear, the stuff up here in the real world that's got you worried, losing weight, mumbling to yourself. It's driving you to work far too many hours with no sleep. You're doing all of your sleep time in your pod where you work in the game." She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. "Belinda and the others are worried about things, too, but not as much as you. So why don't you tell Mama about the big problem on your mind?"