With regrets, Robert waved Neil and Fiorello over to their table.

"Hey, Neil," Robert said.

"Hey Rob, what's happening man," Neil replied.

"Um… well look. Something happened."

"Yeah, I know. The power's out, and the plumbing doesn't work. I dropped a major load just now, and there was no water pressure." Neil stopped talking, and then he said, "Maybe it's the hangover but is anyone else seeing the light floating on top of Robert's head?" When they all nodded, "What is it? Some sort of Rave gear? Are we all going to drop X to ride out the power failure? If so, where can I get me some?" Neil said.

Robert then spent another fifteen minutes explaining to Neil and Fio what was going on.

"This is gonna sound like a stupid question, but where can I get one of those magic gemstones?" Fiorello said.

"I don't know." Robert said, "You might be able to ask one of the people who are planning to leave for theirs. If that Knaxis creature ever comes back, and hopefully he never does, you might be able to score one from him."

Robert said, "Other than that, I think you've screwed, Neil."

"And you couldn't wake me up for this," Neil said.

"I tried. You were kind of a douche about it," said Robert. "Besides, it sort of came on all of a sudden, and we kind of forgot about you when the action was happening. Why don't you go out there and ask around? There are a bunch of people who don't seem to want to use theirs. Try Sophia. Though her sister is sick so she might want to stay around just for that. Maybe someone wants to give away their gemstone. If you can't find someone, there is something I want to try."

Neil and Fiorello got up and began walking around from table to table, asking begging, pleading. It didn't look like they were having a lot of luck. In Robert's mind, he realized that it was just too early, people wanted security, and that meant hanging on to that gemstone. Even if they weren't planning on using it. The gems were a lifeline, even if it was one they weren't planning on using.

While they watched Neil go from person to person, Ahmed stood up and said, "I think I know what I want to do, with my gemstone. Mind if I skedaddle?"

"Me too," said Leslie.

The two of them got up, and Susan got up too, "I think I'll follow Neil and Leslie. I want to watch. See if there are any changes from what you said happened. Plus I have some ideas. At the very least, I want to see my stats before I make any decisions."

Robert said, "I think I'll stick around down here. People still have questions. Good luck."

Akiko followed Susan. She gave Robert a shy smile just before she left.

When his friends gone, everyone else in the room suddenly felt like they could ask Robert for help. For the next couple of hours, he answered questions, made suggestions, and tried to shuffle people into directions that would both help out everyone in the dorm community, but also would be suitable for the overall defensive or offensive capabilities of their group.

Not everybody went into the chapel to use their experience stone, but a large enough group of people did. A lot of the other people in the cafeteria just wanted to listen in to what other people were asking, looking for hints about what they could do themselves.

Slowly as the day wrapped in timeless dark wore on, Robert could see through the windows out onto the dorm green, bursts of light made from sudden flames and arcs of lightning. First, there was only one or two. Then as more people came out of the chapel having spent their gemstone, the darkness outside was lit with multiple balls of light.

Soon the Canadian flag was billowed violently as competing bursts of wind whipped it back and forth. A group of people was having a water fight without any squirt guns, water balloons, or hoses. And an impromptu game of ice hockey was happening over by the main road, except as he watched he saw that a couple of the players were teleporting short distances around the rink instead of skating.

As the fun and anarchy outside spread the last of the people who had been hanging out inside the cafeteria went outside either to join them or watch. The tension that had built up since the morning was lessened. At least a little bit.

The last people who Robert spoke with in the cafeteria were poor Fatima and the other Leslie. Both of whom had slept through Knaxis the squid guy's horrific visit and thus hadn't gotten a mana gem. And all he could tell them was to find Neil and Fiorello and see what progress they'd had in getting their own corundum rock.

Huang came in and said, "Wanna let me into the kitchen. As soon as they finish playing, they will want food. I promised there would be eggs."

Robert got up and walked over to where Huang and then unlocked the door to the kitchen. "I'll set the salad bar out into the seating area. Give people a choice between eggs and salad. Call it brunch. The veggies will wilt if we don't use them up."

While Huang cooked Robert ferried romaine lettuce, chopped onions and peppers, chickpeas, pickled beets, bacon bits, and croutons out into the cafeteria and laid them out on a table. The fridge was off, and it was warming up fast, so Robert tried to minimize opening and closing. He would have to track down whoever had set up the ice rink and have them freeze over the fridge. Or maybe he could set up some sort of enchanting solution.

On that note, when he finished setting up the salad, he grabbed a couple of small plates. The kind that the kitchen staff usually put jello on. Then he found the marker that they used to write down the daily special.

Sitting at a table outside, he examined the plate. It had a smooth flat white surface that was about 15 centimeters across. Perfect for drawing runes on. What he wanted was something that would store a large amount of a kind of magic and then release it slowly. Like a Magic capacitor.

The knowledge he'd gained in Rune Lore skill presented him with three or four different ways to finish the project he had in mind...

It was impressive how adding some points into a skill managed to fill his mind with the knowledge of the subject. At the same time, it worried him that maybe the people in his dorm might grow too used to the easy access to learning that the Species Stone provided. Would they stop experimenting and learning on their own?

Before Robert could try writing on the first plate, someone said, "I need an egg."

He looked up, and Robert saw that Allan staring at him with an intense look on his face.

"Did you take summoning?"

"Yup. I tried using it to bring back Ryan and Liam, but apparently, I'm not strong enough yet, or I don't know how to do it. So I thought I would practice by trying to summon some chickens, pigs, goats, and cows. If I can manage on an egg, I can move on to bacon, feta cheese, and hamburger."

Robert waved him toward the kitchen. "Huang is in there cooking. Let him know what you want."

"Oh, before I go, I should mention that Susan said that she saw a rabbit and a couple of squirrels scamper into the bushes before hell broke loose out on the green. Who knows what else is out there. Raccoons, and bird's I'd imagine. Maybe the crickets will start up again." Allan said.

"Squirrelly stew. Yum!" Said, Robert.

Taking the marker, Robert began drawing the runes to create a kind of mana battery and slow release system. He needed to create an input pathway that could accept a lot of Mana quickly, and an exit pathway that would let that Mana back out slowly at a controlled pace. He also added runes for light magic.

When he was done marking up the ceramic plate with runic symbols, Robert then used enchanting to infuse the runes with raw magic power. When he'd written out the spell on the plate, he had written in some generic areas that could hold typed magic. As the enchanting energies ran through his body and onto the plate, runes he'd inscribed with the dry erase marker seemed to burn in prismatic colors on the plate as magic flowed through Robert's body. Eventually, the magic died out, and the dry erase marker lines now looked like they had been burnt into the plate.

Now that the plate was enchanted, the next step was to attune the generic areas for typed magic to be attuned to light magic. He did this by casting a light spell directly into the generic domains. This was the easiest way to do this. There seemed to be more specific runes that directly used typed magic, but Robert wasn't familiar with them. He just knew they existed.

Now the enchantment was done. But he had to fill the enchanted plate with Mana, so Robert t began to push light Mana into the dish. Mana flowed into the runes like a sponge.

Stopping for a second, he used analyze magic on the plate. It was about 25% full.

Next, Robert tried to push raw Mana into the plate, and the mana reserves filled up even faster. He then switched to lightning magic, without actually casting any kind of electricity. Doing so filled the plate up much slower. The same thing happened with raw water magic and analysis magic.

The whole plate glowed like 60-watt incandescent bulbs, though they tended to flicker. Awesome. As long as someone could cast spells, they could fill a rune-like this with Mana and turn on the light.

It had taken him about 5 minutes to draw and enchant the plate. If he could find a better enchanting surface than the few remaining dishes that they had in the kitchen, conceivably the dorm's lighting issue would be solved.

Pushing the first plate aside, Robert did precisely the same thing with lightning magic. This time he needed two exit channels with only one input channel. It would be direct current, not alternating, but he couldn't do anything about that.

When he was done, and the plate was enchanted, he filled it up with Mana and touched the end and felt a small tingle in his hand. He would need a volt meter to figure out what kind of charge the plate was giving out and then would need to experiment a bit before he could hook up something to recharge phones and laptop batteries.

The plate that generated light had been considerably more straightforward, but Robert relished the challenge of finding just the right sequence of runes. They might not have the internet, but there were still useful for flashlights, ebooks and Candi Crush Saga.

He would have to find an electrical engineer and in the crowd out there and ask a few questions. Or even better, hopefully, they had taken lightning too.

Putting the plates down, the next thing that Robert tried was drawing the lighting runes directly on the wall. These runes didn't give off a lot of light, but when he was done, the room was at least lit without him having to float a ball of brightness above his head.

He was about to set up a few more runes around the room when Huang came in with a big bowl of eggs and put them down on the table beside the salad that Robert had laid out.

"You should call those people in for lunch," Huang said.

Robert nodded and went out to the green.

Once he was outside, he saw that most people had gone back to their rooms and gotten dressed.

He saw Leslie hanging out with the rest of the gang over by the door to the girl's side of the building, and walked over. Claudia was with them, and she was chatting with Susan and Akiko.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," Ahmed said. "Look who's here, Rob. It's Claudia. We've been getting to know her better."

"Ummm... Hey, Claudia," Robert said.

"Hey, Robert." Claudia. Then she gestured to the groups of people cavorting and shooting off magic. "Did you expect this? It's like what I imagined Hogwarts to be."

"Yes. No. Not like this. Hey, has anybody seen Neil?" Rob said.

"A couple of the girls who were planning on trying to just went back to the girl's side. Neil said he was going up there to try to seduce one of their gems away from them." Ahmed said.

"God, help us all." Muttered Leslie.

"Les, there is some lunch in the cafeteria. Not a lot, but some. Do you mind helping me let people know." Rob said.

Together Leslie and Robert moved from group to group and let them know that there was some food in the kitchen. While he was doing this, Robert stopped and chatted with a lot of pople and asked them how they were doing and a little bit about the choices they'd made to their characters sheet.

He was surprised that just over half of the people he'd spoken with had already used their mana stone, and about half of the rest were planning on doing it, but they just hadn't made up their minds on how to spend their points.

The last quarter of the people were full of indecision and still had a lot of questions. A lot of them continue to think that they'll just wake up and this would all go away. For the most part, Robert was cool with that kind of indecision. Better to approach things cautiously.

There was a couple of girls, Jenny and Sheila, who somehow blamed him and Leslie for this since they were Senior Residential Advisors. They were in charge, so somehow all of this must be their fault. Well, there was one thing Robert's father kept telling him, and that was, "You can't fix crazy." Which was ironic since Robert's dad was a well know psychiatrist, but then maybe he would know. So he decided to leave those girls for Leslie to handle.

Walking back into the cafeteria, he saw that everybody had little bowls of food in front of them.

Huang said, "Yo Robert, you can't just leave the salad out like its self serve. We're rationing remember. I grabbed a couple of people, and they're handling the portion sizes. Nobody is getting too much, but hopefully, nobody is getting too little."

Robert nodded and said, "Thanks, Huang. I need to put some people in charge of the kitchen. We have to inventory everything and assign some regular cooks. That is unless your group wants to do that?"

"Fuck you, Robert. I said I would do it once, but we're not your scullery team. Besides, you're supposed to be the leader, so lead. Designate someone if you have to." Huang said.

Rob nodded, "I don't know. Sometimes I think that you would make a better leader than I would, in this. You've shown yourself to be decisive."

"They like you, Robert. And you know practically everyone. They don't like me. And I don't give a shit about them." Huang said.

Robert nodded again, "I'll probably need your help, though. I know we don't get along, but you've made a lot of good suggestions."

Huang nodded, then said, "well, you're a sanctimonious prick, but if I can help out I will. Now get out of here and go hang out with your friends."

Robert turned and walked over to get a small bowl of salad and a tiny side of eggs from Brent. Then he made his way to where his friends were sitting.

But before he could sit down, one of that group of chemical engineers he'd seen laughing came up to him. It was Gary, who was a senior. "Hey man, Huang said you were the person who did the lights. Super cool runes. Anyway me and the guys are starting a kind of crafters guild. We want to set up a group of buildings in the empty area near the parking lot for things like alchemy and weapon smithing. And since you have enchanting, we wanted you to join us."

"Of course. Though I would hold off on building for now. I think we should explore the cave first before we set up any new buildings. We want to know where invaders will come in, and if there is somewhere, they will leave through. We can't have the crafting stuff right in-between." Robert said.

"Damn. We hadn't thought of that." Gary said.

"No prob. I was going to put a search team together after lunch."

Gary nodded. "I'll tell the guys. Mind letting anybody else who picked up crafting skills know about our group?"

"Will do."

Robert continued walking towards the table. When the girl who'd asked about being a Druid came up to him… Jennifer… that's what her name was. It took him a second. Jennifer had a Raccoon sitting on her shoulder.

"Robert. Look who I found. He was all alone. His name is Englebert. Isn't he the cutest." Jennifer gushed.

The raccoon hissed menacingly at Robert and then snuggled up to Jennifer.

"Englebert that isn't nice." Jennifer looked over at Robert and said, "He's a bit shy and a little scared right now."

"I take it you took charm?" Robert said.

"And empathy and nature and body. If you have some more seeds or plant material. I can probably set up a little farm. I already have some lettuce, beets, onions, green peppers, carrots, banana peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, peas, beans, black beans, celery and chick peas from the salad. Can you make me some lights? And the light doesn't have to be white. An intense blue and red light would be a lot better for Chlorophyl a and b." Jennifer spoke a mile a minute.

"You'll have to provide the Mana yourself, but I can easily manage that. And I think one of Leslie's friends has a herb garden you can probably take some cuttings from."

"I wonder if I can grow some flowers too."

"Don't forget about fruit Jennifer. There are oranges, pineapple, bananas, apples, kiwis, strawberries, and blueberries, that kind of thing in the kitchen. "

Jennifer nodded and wandered away, having a very one-sided conversation with her raccoon. So Robert continued walking towards the table where his friends were sitting when someone grabbed him from behind and enveloped him in an enormous hug.

Robert turned around and saw something standing behind him. It was wearing people clothes, but it had bright pink and white fur and fox-like ears. Its teeth were fanged, and there were claws on its hands. There was also a bright pink tail.

"Oh, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you. I don't know how you did this, but it is everything I ever wanted." A voice Robert sort of recognized said.

"Darren?"

"This is the happiest day of my life. I always knew that I didn't fit in. There was always an animal inside of me wanting to get out. But I could never express myself. Now, look at me." Darren gestured at himself. No, herself. Robert saw that Darren was clearly a woman now. A very furry animal woman.

"You changed your gender? Wait… how did you do that? When I looked, it cost 1000 xp. You couldn't have managed that and the fur with only one gemstone."

Darren shrugged. "It only cost 200 xp for me. I guess the system knew that I was always meant to be a woman. And an animal."

Robert sighed and shook his head, "I guess I'm happy for you, Darren. Though I didn't have anything to do with what is happening right now."

"Jenny and Sheila seem to think all of this is your fault," Darren said.

"Jenny and Sheila are crazy. Like completely loonie toons." Said, Robert. "Look, I'm going to go and sit with my friends. Don't be a stranger."

"I won't. Oh, and my name is now Darlene."

"Okay Darlene, don't be a stranger."

She hugged him again, and Robert felt an entirely new type of uncomfortable. But that uncomfortable wasn't worthy of him, so he ignored it. He had never liked Daren and probably never would, but he could at least be happy for her.

"Say, Rob," Darnell came over to him, "I was wondering how you got those runes going. I took enchanting and runes, and I haven't been able to manage anything half so well."

Since he didn't want to mention the extra gems he'd swiped from the Knaxis thing — especially now that Neil and the others didn't have one, Robert said, "Luck mostly. Not the Magic Luck, just the old fashioned kind. Maybe the Species Stone gives us different knowledge depending on what we already know."

"I guess that makes sense. Mind if I study your runes? I did something with my Darkness magic, and while it lets out a cloud of shadows, it isn't nearly as dark as your own. Maybe I'll learn something about studying what you did. Maybe if you draw and explain what you did, I might get a few freebie points."

He nodded at Darnell, "Sure thing. Actually, here." Robert handed Darnell the plates that were putting out light and electricity. "Hope this help." I need to eat, and then after that, I was planning to get dressed and explore the rest of the cave we're in."

"Mind if I come?"

"No problem. What else, besides darkness, did you take? If you don't mind my asking?"

"Well, a rogue is my favorite character class. And I was about to take build trap when I had this thought, 'my mechanical engineering is sky high, and so is my hunting, I could probably do better than some smart fantasy rock." So I took detect trap instead. You alway need to detect traps. And when I looked, I guess that rock agreed with me and suddenly I had a Make Trap skill at 56. Crazy kind of synergy. Should be fun to use with Enchanting."

Robert nodded. "I was just talking to Gary. I should have asked how Alchemy and Chemistry meshed."

Darnell nodded and said, "I'd be curious about that too. Maybe I'll go and ask them."

"They were talking about starting up a crafter area. You might want in on that too." Robert said.

"Thanks, Robert."

Finally, able to sit down, Rob made his way to the table. Ahmed saw him coming and said, "Look! Robert, we saved you a chair." The chair was, of course, right next to Claudia.

Robert sat down and said, "Hey."

"So what's next?" Leslie said.

"I wanted to explore the cave. Plus Jennifer wants to set up a garden, so we need to figure out where." Robert said around mouthfuls of salad. There was a lot still to do. Plus he still needed to get dressed. He'd spent the entire morning in his bathrobe and was beginning to feel a bit like Arthur Dent.

"Mind if I come," Claudia said. "I was with Jennifer when we went down to the forest." We didn't go very far in before she found Englebert. But while we were there, I heard running water."

Robert looked over at her and said, "Hmmm… there was always a small creek running though the forest. Nothing big enough to make a running water sound. Anyway, Darnell's coming too. Might as well make it a group. Though hopefully, the trip will be boring and uneventful."

Turning to the rest of the table, Robert said, "Darren is Darlene now, by the way. And she is covered in pink fur, and she has fangs and claws."

"So that's who that was," Ahmed said. "We were curious. I may have called her a flying purple people eater before I knew it was Darren — sorry, Darlene. Sarah smacked me, though. I will admit that she isn't purple."

"Ahmed, you tried to pass that stupid kids song off as one of the hymns of your religion. I hope she is as happy with her change in a few months as she is now." Sarah said. "It'll be hard to be the only person covered in pink fur. She didn't have many friends even before. Now when we need to pull together, she'll just stand out."

"Should we move her over to the girl's side of the dorm?" Leslie said.

"I'd leave it up to her. Maybe figure out if there is a spare room, and hint at it, but be clear that it is her choice to move or not. We should also see if anybody starts harassing her. Ahmed, no more purple people eaters, bullshit. I know. I know. She was ultra annoying before all this happened, and I can't imagine that's changed. But she is one of us, so pass the word along to leave her alone. Frankly, this is one more layer of trouble that I'd rather not have, all things considered." Robert said.

Then Robert paused, "Oh, I should also mention, Gary and his friends are talking about setting up a crafting center up just past the parking lot. They invited me to join them."

"Yeah, they Gary talked to me too. They were wondering if I took earth magic, and when I said yes, they wanted my help designing and constructing their buildings." Ahmed said. "Actually, I think I will come too. I want to see what kind of rock the cave is made out of and the lay of the land."

There wasn't much food, so Robert finished quickly. Then he stood up and said, "Give me a couple minutes to get out of this stupid bathrobe, and I will meet you back here."

"But Robert, when your robe shifts, we can all see your dangly bits. I thought you were giving us girls a show." Sarah said.

Robert hurried out of the cafeteria quickly, narrowly avoiding a couple people that wanted to talk to him about something. Back up in his room, he threw on a fresh shirt and pants. Then he checked his fridge and discovered that the beer and bottled water in it were now lukewarm.

He also needed to pee, but with the plumbing not working, it would probably be best if he found a place to do it outside. Soon people would want showers. The water problem would probably have to be one of the first things that got fixed; otherwise, the dorm would begin to smell. He just wasn't sure how to go about fixing it. Maybe they could develop some sort of magic pump to pressurize the water pipes.

It also occurred to him that if they got a decent crafting area going, they might be able to melt down some of the cars in the parking lot for steel, aluminum, lead and maybe even some platinum and titanium. Copper wire too comes to think of it.

With those thoughts on his mind, Robert stepped back out into the courtyard, to find a bunch of people waiting to go exploring. There were more people than he thought would come. Nearly twenty. It was time to see how much space they had been summoned into and how much room they had to grow.