The morning dawned, bright and clear and not nearly soon enough for Rob. The whole elf physiology thing had turned him into a hyper night owl, and he only had so much concentration to spend meditating and working on his [Design of Cultivation]. Boredom led to him doing push ups in the room while trying to cycle his mana.

It wasn't until he sat back afterward, feeling pleasantly refreshed by the physical activity and enjoying the trickle of light from the newly started day, that he realized he didn't know what the bathing customs in Lotrot were. At the Studio, Lena had built up a decadent shower and hot springs set up for staying clean. Here? He didn't know if they even used water or just cast [Cleanse] spells or something like that.

While there seemed to be a decent water table under the steppe like lands surrounding Lotrot, at least judging by number of wells Rob had spotted on their way through the city, he had yet to spot a river. He wasn't sure if there were any in the area. In a world of magic, where the Mana Wastes defined the edge of the world as the world literally built itself out into the Primal Chaos, who was to say that rivers were as necessary to civilizations as they had been on Earth?

Rob pulled out one of the blank journals from his pack and a pen. He happily noted that Lena had gotten the ink consistency a lot closer to his favorite ballpoints. He skipped a page and titled the next one "Rhofhir Whatsits". Then started writing down his questions.

Half an hour later, with Jason still snoring out sounds reminiscent of a lumber mill, Rob set both journal and pen down on the night stand and stretched. The action caused a stronger whiff of his body odor to stir up to his nose.

To be honest, Rob didn't find his new sweat stench all that unpleasant, but he already missed soaking in the Studio's hot springs.

Thinking of Lena's bathing room reminded Rob that she had set up open face lockers with a [Cleanse] field. He wore a deployable [Force Shield] that had been one of Aaron and Candy's first successes at making enchanted gear. He wondered what goodies were in the spatial bag.

Rob retrieved the bag and opened it. That simple act caused an info packet to get pushed to him over the Guardian Communication Channel, the G.C. as the crew had come to call it. The info packet contained an inventory of the items linked to his spatial bag. He grinned and retrieved the gear piece listed as a Camp Cleanser.

He pulled out a flattened hoop of bronze metal with a diameter of one meter. The rim of the hoop was a disk half a centimeter thick with rounded edges. It lay two centimeters wide, adorned with beautiful engravings filled with Lena's ever present mana crystals. These were colored a translucent yellow.

Practicing his [Analyze] spell got him a blue box.

•••⁃•••⁃•••

Camp Cleanser

Composition: Bronze, Citrine

Mana Capacity: 10

Mana Channel: 10D

Command Word: [Bipity-Bobbity]

Effect: casts minor [Cleanse] spell upon item(s) within the ring of the Camp Cleanser.

•••⁃•••⁃•••

The 10D channel meant that the Camp Cleanser would recover ten mana per day. If it had been an S that would have meant per second, M stood for minute, and H for hour. If it didn't soak up at least one mana per day then it wasn't a mana crystal.

Basically, they had ten charges, and if they spaced out the usage by a little over two hours per, they could run the cleanser indefinitely. Sweet!

Rob moved the hoop in preparation for [Cleansing] himself, but before he got it over his body, Rostem pounced.

"No!" Rob scolded, forcibly opening the kitteagle's talons to make it let go of the shiny ring. Rostem made a feline chirping noise and the sense of his disappointment and frustration came over the GC.

Rob grinned, amused at his own idea, and put the Camp Cleanser back in his spatial bag. After securing that out of the way of the shenangigans he envisioned, Rob then removed the fishing tackle kit from his bag and quickly worked up a feathered cat toy.

He did not expect Adam, who had been surprisingly quiet the whole time Rob was trying to keep from pacing the ceiling. The Advanced Armored Shadow Wolf snatched the toy from Rob's hand, his teeth snapping down on the rope close enough to Rob's fingers that Rob felt the moist heat of the wolf's breath shoved out of his mouth by the closing of his jaws.

"Hey!" Rob yelled — and it was definitely a yell, not a high pitched yip — which woke Jason.

The expandable pole from Jason's kit swung out, extending as Jason grabbed it out from under his pillow and swung it into a ready position. It smacked poor Tahmina into Adam's head, the arch of the pole barely coming to a stop centimeters from Rob's nose.

"Wha' the fu—!?" Jason growled over the squawking and yipping of the critters.

Rob held very still and pushed the order to do the same out to the companion creatures in their room as a thought over the GC. He waited long enough to take in a deep breath and slowly let it out, but the pole did not move. Speaking as calmly as he could, Rob asked, "Are you awake?"

Jason blinked, seeming to come to an awareness of the situation. The pole retracted. "It's the fucking ass end of the evening. What the hell you doing waking me up like that, man?"

Rob relaxed; Jason's conscious mind was in control. Rob may not have spent time in any of the hot spots, but he had served — and bunked — with a few people who had. Just because they had been Army mechanics didn't mean they hadn't seen more than their fair share of traumatic service. The nature of war on Earth had changed drastically over the last century, and the idea of a solid front line was a dream of the past, like chivalry and corn without GMO genes. It only took one bunk mate bloodying his nose because he stood too close when waking him up for Rob to realize the cautions they got in Basic about waking sleeping soldiers weren't just CYOA bull hockey.

"It's actually the early start of the morning. Sorry for the noise. Adam here decided to try for my hand when I was waving a string for the cat birds. Guess tug-o-war is a universal game for canines to megaverse over." Rob looked around, spotting Tahmina crouched down beside Adam's paws.

He crouched down and began checking her over for damage. She mew-chirped piteously and favored her wing, but even as he watched, the odd bend in it straightened. Her pain saturated the GC close to her, but as she wasn't actively blasting it through the communications channel Rob wasn't sure if Jason even realized what he had done.

Adopting the soothing tones Aaron always used on their pets, Rob said, "Let's see if you can stretch that wing out, eh, Tahmina-girlie? Maybe make it easier for your contract to straighten the break. Probably hurt, I know, but a little pain now to get to a lot of no-pain later, right?"

Jason had been stuffing his makeshift club back under his pillow, but on hearing Rob, he turned and really took in the room. "Oh, fuck! I'm sorry, Tahmina! Shit! Adam, too! What the fuck?"

"Bad wake ups happen. Maybe don't use the expanding pole as your bed buddy," Rob said. Getting into recriminations wouldn't change what had happened, and Jason was going to feel enough like a heel as it was. If Rob dumped all over him, Jason would clam up with guilt for three or four times as long. By the same token, Jason wasn't going to let Rob absolve him of responsibility for his actions, undertaken while awake or not.