Chapter 548 - Garden Meditations

A dinner of grilled whitefish with a tangy lemon sauce, jasmine-infused rice, and fresh vegetables was surpassed only by the chocolate cake

A dinner of grilled whitefish with a tangy lemon sauce, jasmine-infused rice, and fresh vegetables was surpassed only by the chocolate cake and homemade ice cream that tasted exactly like happiness, and Eric most definitely wasn’t tearing up, though he did make sure to tall Maja a bedtime story before turning in himself and declaring it, all in all, a very good day.

But he refused to play the idiot or risk disaster after freshening up and changing into comfy cotton pajamas, because why not? Instead, he stepped several feet in the air upon invisible cushions of clouds he could totally sense, whether or not anyone else could, before lying down in speed racer-enhanced comfyness several feet over the bed, where even the worst night terrors would assure that no thrashing limbs would obliterate bed, walls, or otherwise generate deadly shrapnel. Not that he hoped for anything but a peaceful night’s sleep, but the night before had been risky enough. No way was he taking any unnecessary chances now.

Not with lives so precious at steak.

He took deep breaths, savoring the memories of Louise’s playful smirk and Maja’s trilling laughter. Ella had finally warmed up to him for a goodnight hug, even if his crimson runes had scared her, at first. It seemed that she was acutely sensitive to magic, and some of Eric’s magical flavors were very sharp and scary. Even if she had liked the dancing plants and trees.

So he closed his eyes and allowed his thoughts to drift, exquisite ears habitually listening for trouble that revealed nothing worst than distant crickets… and the whispered words of a couple evaluating their latest addition.

“Thoughts, love?”

Hanna sighed. “The girls are angels. The pain I see in their eyes, the way they flinch before any unexpected noise or presence… it breaks my heart.”

“Agreed. But at least they have a home, here. At least they’re safe. With us.”

“Thank you for opening your heart to them, John.”

“After all they’d been through, how could I not?”

“And we’re it not for a certain remarkable young man, we’d never know what thoughtful creative and sweet girls they truly are. They have such a hard time even uttering our dialect. But with those handful of words Eric coaxed from them, I know it’s not impossible. They just need time. But if Eric hadn’t been placed so fortuitously with them…”

“Agreed.”

A rueful chuckle rang in the distant bedroom. “Oh, the sheer impossibility of a boy with a Universal Translator gift. And so many other secrets as well.”

“So you noticed as well.”

Hanna snorted. “How could I not? With his mastery over a few squash leaves he showed both his exotic heritage and his tender concern for the pair of girls only in his life through sheerest happenstance.”

“Any other oddities?”

“You mean besides the way he effortlessly lifted our daughter by the soles of her feet, and she didn’t lose her balance, fall off, or even wobble? You saw her look of surprise as clearly as I.”

John sighed. “I did.”

She tutted. “The child is monstrously strong. And not just for a human. And I worry about that poor boy, even now.”

Eric froze as the words washed over him, silently castigating himself for not being more careful. Why had he given into the impulse of helping Louise after verbally trapping her in her own dare? But of course he had. Always providing an out that would leave her able to smile and feel victorious in the end. Never rubbing it in her face, even when he saw victory so clearly… so viscerally. Because such a victory would leave only a sour taste in his mouth. This way, Louise felt triumphant and all the happier with him, and he felt like twice the winner.

And wait… why was Hanna worrying about him?

“What did you sense?” John’s voice. Also sounding concerned. So, fuck… why was Eric suddenly feeling anxious?

He glared at his perfectly happy, relaxed, and healthy resting form, trying to sleep but settling instead for eavesdropping.

“It took only the gentlest coaxing, so like our firstborn, to convince him to actually open himself up to me. I was both flattered, and worried, since a far more ruthless person than myself could have so easily taken advantage of him then and there. Then I was horrified, when I saw just how utter and complete the foul plaque strangling his meridian channels was.”

“Like my own stiffened nodes?”

“No, dear. You walk an odd path, different from my own, but it’s all… ordered. And somehow, I sense an odd energy… Mana, I suppose, resonating nonetheless. But with the boy… it isn’t an arcanist’s arts that I see signs of, but cultivator’s channels, spiritual residue, signs of having once walked a different path. And waste. So much waste that could only have come from the foulest of arts.”

Eric winced all the more with those words. It was all he could do not to vent a bitter sigh and take the documents Hanna had been kind enough to place on his desk. Then he would carefully slip out the sliding door, head down the balcony steps, and give up the stupid fantasy of any slice-of-life family edition to his life, whatsoever.

But where would Ella and Maja be, if he did that?

With that thought firmly in mind, he ignored the pounding of a heart that should fear nothing save for the deadliest Silver-Tier beasts, and listened on.

“How bad was it?”

“Bad enough that it’s clear that his tribe went down some exceedingly dark paths to stave off their aggressors, whoever they were.”

“Orcs, one would suppose.”

Hanna sighed. “With what he let slip, exactly that. And by some miracle, whatever he and those like him underwent, clearly it was enough to assure his survival, and hopefully his people as well.”

“But he paid a price. Like so many of my battle brethren. It was far more bitter than he had first imagined it would be.”

Hanna sighed. “Yes, love. I sensed so much cultivation potential within him. Incredible potential. Just as I do a dozen lifetime’s worth of caustic waste clogging each and every one of his impossibly massive gates.”

“Hanna?”

“I think, maybe, if he had been born and raised here and not in whatever war-torn tragedy his life had become… he would have the potential to walk beside wujens who had already formed their Silver Core.”

John whistled. “Truly? I’ve never heard you give anyone such praise before.”

“And those words do him little good now. His path has been utterly denied him, by means I shudder even to think about.”

“Do you think it has anything to do with the gifts he used to repair his shirt?”

A thoughtful pause. “I don’t know. Blood wujens are among the scarier sorts. But their path, though not entirely orthodox, doesn’t necessarily damn their foundations, either. Yet few cultivators deliberately choose that path unless compelled by war or peril, so I suppose its possible. But more likely those crimson arts are just one facet of the twisted jewel that came so close to killing the boy, even as it infused his muscles with the potency of his own life force.”

“He is ridiculously strong for a sixteen-year-old, even a classer,” John conceded. “And not quite as skilled at hiding his talents as he might like to think.”

Eric winced at those words.

“Really?” Hanna asked. “How so?”

John snorted. “You lived most of your life on the plateau. How good were your archers? Good enough to strike a dangling peach 200 yards away with their arrows?”

“Not an easy shot, by any means. But a skilled archer in the upper reaches of Body Cleansing or just broken through to Energy Storage should be able to manage it.”

“Fair enough. How about with a sling?”

The other room grew quiet. “Are you serious?”

“A single peach well over two hundred yards from the range. Louise’s request. And that was after he shattered the warding wood target at a hundred yards. The one you gifted me with, all those years ago.”

“Wood that should be utterly indestructible to most of your toys?”

“Yes, dear. Wood that shows only modest damage, even after enduring serious plasma fire.”

“Honey, sling stones are rarely more than 5 ounces. Perhaps the size of a hen’s egg.”

“This one was the size of a beaming ball, perhaps two pounds in weight.”

“But still…”

“It cracked the sound barrier upon release, Hanna. And it did a hell of a lot more damage than an orc musket at point blank range.”

“He destroyed my gift with the equivalent of a black powder artillery shell.”

“A small, light, two pound stone artillery shell. Stones I know damn well that I kept clear of the target range, so our baby doesn’t risk twisting her ankle… but yes. Exactly that.”

Hanna chuckled ruefully. “What a deadly little slinger we’ve invited into our home.”

Eric winced at those words.

“My guess is he’s an Elite-tier classer. At that tier, the weapon choice hardly matters. It’s just how he chooses to project the potency of his class. If it were a bow, I’m sure he’d have class perks that would allow him to summon arrows from an endless quiver and hit his targets with unstoppable force at the cost of a single Mana point per shot.”

Hanna sighed. “System classers are truly fearsome creatures.”

“We can be, love. Now there’s something this fierce creature would love to—”

Eric winced, happy to find that with just a bit of focus he could, in fact, tune out any conversation he didn’t want to hear.

His thoughts raced as he castigated himself for a fool. He had thought he was being so clever! Clearly, he had been too confident. Too restless. Not fully appreciating just how observant and tuned to their environment John and Hanna would be. But of course they were! With decades, maybe centuries of accrued wisdom at their disposal, it would make sense for them to observe absolutely everything he did and come to the most dispassionate of decisions.

Eric cursed softly as he closed his tired eyes and tried to slip into nod.

He wouldn’t be at all surprised if Hanna gave him a gentle hint, the ‘good news’ that he was free to leave as soon as he liked tomorrow. Perhaps John would even line him up with a job. And he would just give a clueless sad smile and go with it, because what choice was there that didn’t end in either tragedy or him being labeled a monster?

“It was sweet while it lasted,” he thought to himself as he closed his eyes and finally fell sleep.

***

“Eric? There you are. The girls woke up early, so I thought we could all take a walk together, but weren’t in your room, and I didn’t see a note.”

Eric slipped free of his frustrating attempts at cultivation, gazing up from where he sat in the heart of the vegetable garden, exactly where they had sat the day before. He forced a smile past his frustration.

“Sorry, I got up early. Just thought I’d give what we practiced yesterday another try.”

Hanna’s worried features eased into an encouraging smile. “And did you have any luck?”

Eric’s sigh said it all. “Not even a little bit. I can’t make heads or tails of those peripheral strands. Hell, I can’t even find them! It’s like they’re in an extra-dimensional space, and since I’m presently stuck in the body of a stupid elf boy born without a sense of direction… someone who would have been absolute shit at guerrilla warfare back on Earth, if he didn’t have a System map in the corner of his eye letting him keep tabs on the terrain and all the nearby blinking reds… well, to be honest, I’m pretty hopeless at this.”

Ella, right behind Hanna, bit her lip with worry when she saw Eric’s expression. “What’s wrong, brother?”

Eric repeated his self deprecating spiel for his anxious foster sister whose concern turned to an angry scowl.

“You’re being an idiot. Stop it. You were shown spirit threads just a day ago. It takes aspirants years to become masters, Eric.”

He winced at Ella’s disapproving glower, mirrored by her sister, presently with her arm looped around Ella’s waist for comfort.

Hanna snorted sympathetically. “Stuck in the body of a stupid elf-boy, is it? Not an absurdly handsome and gifted youth who’ll probably claim the hearts of half the girls in his future classes... and he best be very careful with them, if he doesn’t want very angry foster parents.”

Eric flushed at that. “I’m not planning on breaking any teenage hearts.”

“Good. So, when not pining like the lead actor of a play, what body are you supposed to be in, if not your own?”

Eric flashed a cheeky smile. “A 4-Dimensional space bird.”

Hanna smirked, crooking an eyebrow. “Really. So my foster son’s actually a spirit beast?”

Eric flopped back on the rustling plants with his hands behind his head, enjoying the feel of the first rays of dawn caressing his skin. “With perfect navigation and magical flaming wings that can fly through the heavens faster than light. I’ll bet I’d be able to figure out my peripheral meridians in half an eye-blink, in that shape.”

Hanna laughed. “Sure, Eric. No doubt a mystical dragon like that would have no problems at all.”

“Phoenix.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Never mind.”

“Well, for fragile mortals stuck in very human bodies like you and I—even if some of us are a bit more exotic than others—its discipline and training that reveals the world’s secrets to us.”

Eric smirked. “True.”

“So, are you ready to continue yesterday’s lessons?”

Eric did his best to hide the hope and relief in his voice. In truth he had been doing his best to grasp what insights he had come so close to sensing the day before, just in case this was his last chance to do so. Just in case John was going to conveniently bump into him, give him an apologetic smile, a clap on his shoulder, and say that he had every confidence in Eric’s ability to blossom and explore the world on his own terms with the gifts of coin and the reference letter that he and his wife, who in truth owed him nothing, had been nice enough to prepare for him. Hell, Eric even had ID and a new last name, and absolutely no right to complain about anything! He had unlocked a new arcane ritual and knew that peripheral meridians so completely separated from the major ones in this time and place could even be harnessed, cleansed, and enhanced… utterly free of the hideous plaque that rendered his 12 nodes all but useless. Save as a classer, where they were potent indeed, and three million Bronze revenants’ worth of taint were absolutely no hindrance at all, with the System by his side.

A System that was only the barest echo of itself, here on Titan Prime.

Yet Hanna’s look wasn’t one of strained tolerance or even fear… it was relief. A relief mirrored by the smiling pair of girls who quickly fluted that they’d be happy just to watch and learn or play in the garden if they got bored as Eric tapped into a path of potency that most definitely wasn’t their own.

“Thank you,” Eric whispered as Hanna assumed the same lotus position as she had the day before.

His surprisingly heartfelt words earned a curious head tilt from Hanna. “Whatever for? Of course I’m going to show you what I can, silly boy. If anything, I’m flattered you got here early, which is a good thing, since you and Louise both have class tomorrow.”

She smiled evilly at his expression. “Yes, Eric, class. Which means that after meditation, you and your stepfather and I will talk about what path forward you’d like to take in life… and the foster care center also gave us a battery of tests to rank where exactly you stand in all the major subjects. So we should determine both your interest and your degree of skill within said interests before dinner.”

She laughed when Eric groaned theatrically. “Oh my. You act just like my…” Her words cut off. She lowered her gaze.

Eric’s look of bemusement, dismay and just a bit of excitement became one of concern.

“Aunt Hanna? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said, though the tears streaming down her cheeks implied otherwise… sufficient for Maja to come over and give her a hug. “Come, Eric, let’s begin our morning cultivation. Just like yesterday, focus on me and use your brilliant Qi Perception to sense the strands of spiritual energy winding through my peripherals. Can you do that for me?”

Eric felt an odd chill as Hanna immediately slipped into meditation while Ella gathered her sister up to play in the nearby pear trees. Because he could now see so clearly the glowing silver strands of spiritual energy glittering so prettily through Hanna’s body and soul. Both impossibly vast and stretching in directions his mind struggled to comprehend… and simultaneously tied completely to her body, right there in front of him.

Then, to his intense wonder and relief, he sensed his own peripherals once more tingling in sympathy to Hanna’s own.

He felt the gentle flow of Spiritual Energy tingling against them, creating bow waves in the spiritual current… just as Hanna’s were.

Her eyes twinkled. “Very good, Eric. Now quickly, seize this moment, this feeling, as the sun crests the horizon and the Qi flow crests around us!”

With those words, Hanna closed her eyes and Eric could sense her peripheral meridians drinking in the Spiritual Energy.

He stared at those near invisible and vastly distant filaments right in front of him with desperate intensity.

His heart was pounding. Breath coming in shuddering gasps.

He could almost… almost imagine the hunger within those peripheral strands.

A desperate hunger that was, in fact, his own.

Now, he could almost visualize those tiny filaments stretching wide and gorging themselves on Spiritual Energy.

Imagine that tingle turning to a hot stinging pain, like waking up to a parched throat as the dream of water became a desperate need as trembling limbs reached out for a battered tin cup, desperate parched lips sipping the luke-warm liquid before spitting out the foul tasting gunk and phlegm filling his mouth, coating his throat, coughing it all out and wheezing for air before finally taking a sweet sip of not warm canteen water but the fresh cool purity of a winter stream roaring down his throat and filling him with fire. With hope. With life!

Congratulations! You have haves successfully drawn in pristine Spiritual Energy! You have successfully cleansed 1 of your peripheral meridians!

You have gained 1 Point of Spiritual Energy!

NOTE! Master of Your Nest and Champion Contender status means that all System and Terran experience point boons and attribute modifiers are STILL in FULL EFFECT!

Spiritual Energy boon has been enhanced an additional 1.85 Points!

Your New Spiritual Energy total is 7 + 6 (multiple Titan Prime boons) = 13!

You feel fantastic!

You fail to save versus dizziness!

“Eric? Are you alright?”

Her look of concern turned to one of surprise when Eric sprang up… very carefully sprang up, gazing upon his mentor with wide, joyful eyes. “It worked! You’re a genius, sensei! It worked!”

A myriad of expressions flickered across his foster mother’s features. Surprise, disbelief, wonder, and what he almost thought was jealousy? Before morphing into golden rich laughter, gentle loving eyes twinkling with mirth.

“Well done, Eric! Clearly, cultivating in a Spiritual Energy rich garden is exactly what every hidden prince of Faerie needs to blossom into the storybook hero we all dream of becoming.”

Eric winced, feeling his cheeks flush.

She squeezed his shoulder. “Seriously, Eric. That’s a wonderful accomplishment!” Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “But you know we’ve only begun, right? Why stop at one? Why not see just how far we can push your revelation?” She winked. “If you work really hard, I might even let you skip assessments today!”

And that was all Eric needed to hear, a Contender’s eyes flashing at the challenge. “You’re on, sifu!”

Filled with the sweet rush hope and fierce excitement where before there had only been bittersweet acceptance, Eric focused on the task at hand like he had few things outside the perils of mortal combat, captivated by the effort of trying to understand the complex currents of Spiritual Energy spiraling through the garden and the weird 4-D origami that was his own massive peripheral meridian network.

More than once, he thought it utterly beyond him, that the singular strand he had purified and filled to brimming tingling life had been a fluke. Like tossing a dozen fishing nets into an ocean and of course one would fill with a fish. Yet Hanna seemed always to sense his flagging intent, her piercing violet eyes reigning in even the thought of wavering discipline and replacing it with iron hard focus, unshakable resolve, and fierce determination.

Before being forced to accept that glimpsing even compressed 4-D space was utterly beyond this fragile, mortal form.

Before noticing what should have been utterly obvious from the start.

“You’re not just mapping your peripherals in greater reality. You’re directly filling them with the currents of spiritual energy all around us!”

This earned a smile and a gentle nod. “Of course, Eric.”

His eyes widened at the most basic of truths. “But the air currents flowing through the garden… it’s strictly 3-D space… 2-D, really, since it’s all racing along at corn-stalk level.”

Hanna’s eyes twinkled with mirth. “And what does that tell you, Eric?”

Eric suppressed a grin. Rather than tell her, he showed her in the most physical way possible.

She frowned curiously. “Eric, why are you assuming a Super Punch Man pose?”

Eric nodded with approval. Clearly, she remembered the comic book strip he had redrawn from hand for Louise’s benefit. Even if they had been stick figures… the pose of awesomeness had been unmistakable.

Then Hanna eyes widened, finally taking in what had been reduced to glittering fiery highlights that were now more an odd glitter to his forearms than anything else, and truly a part of him. Far more than they once had been.

But Hanna was no fool.

Yet surprisingly, her eyes were filled with dismay.

“Oh child, you didn’t tattoo your own meridians to your physical body, did you?”

But Eric didn’t answer.

He couldn’t answer, now when he was shivering with rapture, joy, and wonder, as the comparatively tiny, minuscule amounts of crud lodged in what had once been so much more, but in this reality was merely 8 pinned peripherals, was instantly obliterated by Fire, even as Ice effortlessly kept the linings pristine and strong and utterly plaque free. Able to balance his arts so much better than he had when a Level 9 Contender in a pocket realm with no clear path at all.

And compared to the plaque he had been plagued with even then… this was tiny. Miniscule. And his absurdly high resistances tied to meridians physically anchored certainly hadn’t hurt.

Yet the result was the same.

Even as Hanna cried out with concern when Eric stumbled, flaring so brightly, so perilously, the air stinking of Waste Qi as Eric had crumpled to the ground once more, cushioned by a blanked of squash leaves as the Copperthorn vines conveniently fell off the cornstalks right on top of him, the roots almost seeming to greedily suck up all the waste oozing from his forearms.

“Eric!”

Her anxious eyes widened in shock, clearly not expecting the sight before her.

Yet far from desperate cries of folly, broken foundations, and despair, the air rang with laughter and fierce triumph.

“I did it, Sifu!”

Hanna winced. “Did what?”

Eric flinched at the distant pair of startled cries, whistling quick apology to the girls bouncing between pear trees who were now glaring at him, yet his own triumphant smile refused to wane.

“I cleaned them!”

Hanna just stared. “Which, Eric?”

Eric held out his tightly clenched fists. “All of them. All eight of my forearm peripherals!”

“You meant the ones that you or your master tattooed to your flesh?”’

“Yes!”

Hanna, arms crossed, stepped back and tilted her head, as if only now truly taking in the wild-eyed youth before her.

Her scowl eased into a bemused smile, the wind rustling hair flashing with coppery highlights. “And I sense no strain. No impairment from that bit of madness. Though why any tribe would do that to peripheral channels of all things…”

“Because back on Earth… or in the System-ruled Netherrealms, whatever you want to call it, Cultivation works differently. It’s compressed. Very much so. And the first twelve meridian channels, the major ones…”

“We have seven major meridian gates, Eric. And clearing those seven will unlock so much of your potential and open the path to Energy Gathering,” Hanna pointedly said.

Eric shrugged. “Yes. That’s true here. But where I’m from, those would be just the first seven of a hundred incremental levels, each improving you just a little bit more than the one before. Anyway, it was either tattooing the cultivation pathways on my flesh, or spending years I didn’t have studying manuals I didn’t have access to, or learning from teachers who hated me, all save one crippled victim who became my kung fu brother… and there was no time for anything save the path I forged myself. Not when I had mystical peaches to claim, a friend to rescue, and a sister who needed me.”

Hanna rubbed her chin thoughtfully before smiling in bemused approval.

“You’re all but glowing now, Eric. Though I would never recommend whatever desperate path led you to me, with your major meridian gates still so horribly ossified, I can’t deny that at this moment, you all but glow with health.” She bowed her head. “May you walk a pristine path, Eric, and be worthy of your boon.”

Eric smiled through tears of relief and joy, even as he savored his latest System message, not caring a fig that he should technically have no access to the System here at all.

Congratulations! You have taken full advantage of multidimensional peripheral meridians tattooed to your flesh and have successfully cleansed an additional 8 peripherals!

Your Spiritual Energy after all boons and modifiers is now 25! (31 on Titan Prime!)

CONGRATULATIONS! ALL SYMPTOMS OF QI DEPRIVATION HAVE BEEN ALLEVIATED!

You now truly feel like you’re in perfect health once more!

The cheerful System messages filled him with the golden light of happiness.

A light that only dimmed, but didn’t fade completely, even as another hour passed. Hanna now looked a beautiful 25 year old once more, and Eric failed to cleanse or even start to cleanse a single additional peripheral meridian. The remaining ephemeral veins all seemed to loop and twist endlessly in dimensions he still wasn’t able to fully comprehend… and he was getting a headache, no matter his 1500+ Physical Resistance.

“Alright, enough, Eric. You have enjoyed a remarkable breakthrough, had a chance to review your success and consolidate your gains, and now its time for rest, reflection, and a filling breakfast.”

“But I’m so close!” Eric sighed, earning a snort.

“Hardly. You’ve been dancing upon a Fool’s Folly for a while now, after your brilliant Sage’s Insight, but now I fear that forcing it will do you more harm than good.”

She sighed, gazing fondly at the distant clouds high above. “And we are approaching noon. The garden’s spiritual currents are shifting for their own ends. Come, Eric. I have no doubt you’ll enjoy a fresh breakthrough… or at least begin to learn how to recognize and master your own peripherals, come first light tomorrow.”

Eric blinked at this. “Wait, what do you mean begin to master?”

This earned a snort, Hanna’s eyes twinkling even as a giggling Maja leaped to be caught and spun around by her foster mother as a more demure Ella gave Eric a shy wave, earning a hug and head rub from her official older brother.

“You’re first cleansed meridian was fortuitous luck, and assures that you at least understand the process, putting you months ahead of where I thought you’d be. As for the other eight? Only because you were foolish or brilliant enough to tattoo it to your living flesh, using arts that only the most unorthodox wujen might dare.” She flashed a teasing smile. “Congratulations, darling. You’ve just enjoyed your first fortuitous encounter, though I suspect you’ll be earning your breakthroughs like everyone else, from here on out.”

Eric winced at that pronouncement, before conceding the point with a bowed head. “You’re probably right.”

“I know I’m right.”

“But how awesome would it be if I could clear a fresh peripheral every day?”

She laughed. “It would be beyond absurd, Eric. Even for a cultivator in the Energy Gathering stage, hungry for every tiny scrap of power she can claim as her ownj.”

“But you were goading me to try for more just an hour ago!”

She flashed a wicked smile. “Yes, Eric. I was goading you. Eager to see you practice and turn luck into focused discipline. I didn’t actually think you’d claim 8 more!”

“But you’re saying they don’t really count, since they’re basically a living tattoo?”

“No, silly, They most definitely count. You can feel the Spiritual Energy coursing through you, right?”

“Just a little bit?”

“Of course just a little bit. They’re hair-thin! But so much better than deathly still waters in choked off lakes, I promise you that. The point, Eric, is that you’d best not expect any more fortuitous encounters like that. Not unless you have channels carved into your legs as well?” She asked with a raised eyebrow, her teasing smile turning strained when Eric shrugged.

“Sadly, no. I was going to, but there just wasn’t time.”

This earned a sad headshake. “Come on, children. It’s time for us to make breakfast. And you, Eric, could definitely use a pre-lunch nap.”

Eric shrugged, unable to deny it. He was feeling just the slightest bit muddle-headed, and when trying to make a good impression and glean what insights he could into the inner-workings of an entire world… it paid to be as sharp and rested as he could be.