I practice for half an hour in a sound absorbing bubble, working on my audiomancy while I wait for Tom to get to sleep, then play through the night at low natural volume. Turns out that the volume of play doesn’t seem to impact the effectiveness of the thaumic flows much. My sound barrier is partially permeable to sound, while softening what gets through the bubble. I’ve got 50% sound reduction by the time dawn arrives.

As the sun is poking above the horizon, Tom ambles out of his room, and hollers, “You up, kid?”

I head out of the room he had me in, and he hands me a wooden mug of coffee, a wooden cup full of sugar and a wooden spoon.

“Thanks, Tom. You’ve made this place perfect. Whiskey, Coffee, and Barbecue. I don’t know how it might get better.”

“I ain’t dug a trench to the river, so I ain’t got flowing water. Gotta bring barrels. Getting a good shower is somethin’ gonna take a bit.”

“Dude. That’s the one thing I do have.”

I pull out my coin-operated shower, and set it up in three moinutes.

“It’s got an hour of hot water, and it’ll clean any clothes left in the other room. Here’s a extra towel set too.”

I drop a couple thaums in the coin slot, and usher Tom in. While he showers, I drum.

He steps out ten minutes later, looking a bit less dusty than he had been looking.

“I’m mighty obliged, young man. It’s been a couple months since I had a shower, and this old man can use some heat on his old bones. Can I offer you a breakfast? I rustled up some kinda eggs, and the pigs done turned into bacon.”

“Thanks, Tom. Let me wash up, and I’ll join you.”

“It's ready in fifteen minutes, kid. No lollygaggin'. You want more coffee, or juice? I just got orange.”

“Orange Juice. You’re amazing, Tom,” I say as I step into the shower.

I’m out of my extra-short shower ten minutes later, and I arrive as Tom’s setting up breakfast. Everything is made of wood. Silverware, table, cups. And there’s a small mountain of eggs and bacon on my plate. There’s even cloth napkins.

“No, really, man,” I say, “How’d you manage all this?”

“Takes a little work, and a lot of eatin’, but plants do what I want now.”

“And you’re incredibly strong.”

“The plant last month offered me some self improvement. I wasn't dumb enough to turn him down. I’m a bit stronger, and tougher than I was, but I got quite the appetite now.” His eggs and bacon are gone, between words. Musta been a dozen eggs on his plate.

“Come to think of it, I wasn’t so hungry this mornin’. Could probably skip a huntin’ day and be okay. How’d you make it through that month anyhow? You look like a strong wind’d blow you away.”

“Mostly luck, I guess. I’m pretty fast, and got a bit faster with Alec’s help.”

“Was that your plant’s name?”

“Yeah. I called him Smart Alec.”

“Mine was named Virgil.”

“Anyhow, he helped me out with getting faster, and I picked up some stick fighting skills. I don’t figure anything that used to live on earth can catch me any more. And you can’t sneak up on me either. Watch.”

I toss him a baseball out of my pocket, and conspicuously close, then cover my eyes with my hands. “Toss me the ball.”

He throws, and I catch it with my tail, Both hands over my eyes, clearly not peeking.

I show him how I can see with my eyes closed, and then looking the other way, and then even behind his back. “Hold up some fingers behind your back. Three. Now Four.”

He shows me that he can lift about a ton, and that he’s as tough and rugged as the Sasquatch was. My Bowie knife can't do much more to him than my fingernail can do to me.

We keep trading skill information. He shows me growing a beet in an hour, rather than the month it should take. I show him my drumming thaum-field. Then I talk about how that's why he is recovering better as he sleeps.

Later in the day, we go out hunting. He’s got 3 rocks and a spear. Between my making a bit of magnified noise, and echolocation, we end up finding a hulking boar about the size of a horse. I set up a stun-wall, piggy charges through, Tom hits it in the face with a rock, and then steps sideways and skewers the thing. His spear goes in one side and out the other. Tom offers me two oranges, half the thaums, and I put them in my pocket after failing to refuse. Apparently you're not allowed to refuse southern hospitality. When that's all handled, Tom picks up the boar, and carries it back to the house. Carrying a horse-sized pig over his shoulders seems like a normal thing to him, but I boggle a bit. I suppose it's like watching me zip about, but I'm used to me.

Over dinner of pork with plum sauce, potatoes and carrots that night, Tom makes me an offer.

“Ya wanna stay here for a bit, kid? I can offer ya some pretty good food, and a bunch of the comforts of home. I’d love to see if the plants grow better or more nutritious with you drummin and bringin’ all the thaums in. If you can keep that shower set up, do your drum magic, and keep me feelin’ all spry like a spring chicken, I figure I can teach you a bit about fightin’, livin’ off the land and such. And the hunt was pretty good together. What’d ya say?”

“I’d love to stay, Tom. Thanks. Especially if we can jam together sometimes.”