“Well, there is still plenty of daylight left. What do you all want to do?” Charles asked after they had eaten, directing the question mainly at their guests.

Zara timidly raised her hand. “Um, would it be possible to take a shower and get some sleep? We haven’t had a good night’s sleep since we got here and have been washing in the stream that we were following.”

Kate chuckled and stood up. “Why don’t Beth and I take them up to one of the available apartments above us, and explain how the town works here? We wouldn’t want them to get locked out of the apartment by accident.”

Before they left, Charles made sure to give back the scrap of material Zara had lent him earlier, along with his and Charlotte’s thanks.

“Did you see how big the knife that one teddy bear was carrying was? It was bigger than the bear!” Kira laughed once they were alone.

“I think they’re cute.” Myri smiled, hanging onto Silvi. She had some pizza sauce leftover on the corner of her mouth.

Silvi wiped the sauce away with a napkin and nodded. “The bears are odd. They’re puppets, but they have their own wills, thoughts, and feelings. For such a young girl to possess a spell capable of such things is terrifying.”

“That is indeed a rather odd and powerful spell she has at her disposal.” Charles agreed. He cleaned the kitchen and everything they had used for lunch with a quick cleaning spell and clapped his hands. “Alright, now, what about us? What should we do for the rest of the day?”

“Can we go up to the space station?” Myri asked, her eyes shining. She loved going up there with them.

Kira nodded after a quick confirmation glance at Charles. Making sure he still had enough ‘Zero Door’ spell uses to get them up there and was willing.

“Fine, but if we are going to do that, let me get Charlotte and Scott as well. They need to take a break from everything going on down here.”

“Hmm, should I get mom, dad, Kate, Beth, and Inara to come along as well?” Kira asked. As far as everyone was concerned by this point, Kate and Beth went everywhere together. The only time they were ever seen alone was at night, and there had been more than one sleepover, where even that wasn’t the case.

“Sure, I’m fine with everyone coming along. I’m guessing our new guests are going to sleep through dinner, so we might as well eat while we are up there. It might be a good idea to have someone bring up some food just in case though.”

Myri danced around, excited at the idea. She hadn’t spent enough time up in the space station to get bored with the place yet. It was still a magical environment where everything was new and interesting.

“Have your parents whittled down the list of people who want to live on the station full-time yet?” Charles asked as they walked out of the apartment.

Silvi and Myri headed upstairs with some food and to find Kate and Beth to ask if they wanted to join while Charles and Kira went to find her parents. The lab would be their last stop and where everyone could find them when they were ready.

“I’m not sure. New names are constantly being added from all the towns and they are having a hard time sorting through them. What makes it even more difficult is that some people just want to get off Earth and haven’t considered what living on the space station would truly entail. They only see it as an escape and nothing more. It would be an absolute disaster to let those people into a burgeoning town in such a closed-off environment.”

He couldn’t disagree, what she had said was absolutely correct. Letting people who hadn’t thought it through in would be a disaster.

“Well, I’m glad they’re the ones doing all of that work and not me.”

“Yeah, and they hate you for thrusting it all into their laps, by the way. Taking them up to the station might just help you get back into their good graces, at least a little.” Kira replied with a smirk.

“Hey, they’re the town admins, not me.” He protested good-naturedly.

Everything her parents managed by this point was far beyond what the job had initially entailed. Still, he rarely heard them complain about the extra work. They seemed to enjoy staying busy. Most people in the town did. It gave them less time to think about everything that had happened.

What they had all lost.

Every day, the hunting and rescue teams would return with people in tow, desperate for the safety the town provided.

They checked in the town system building first, finding them hard at work. Maps were stuck to the walls with a sticky blue substance, and each was filled with indecipherable markings. The two kept up a running conversation as they flipped through their individual menus, making one change after another.

“Mom, dad?” Kira said hesitantly, afraid to break their concentration.

They blinked repeatedly, and focused on the two newcomers to the room. Their red, bloodshot eyes, watering at the sudden change.

“Hi, sweetie, Charles. What are you both doing here?” Krystal asked, taking a moment to rub her dry eyes.

Beside her, Kory was doing the same thing, only with more vigor.

“Myri wanted to go up to the space station for the rest of the day, and we were hoping to turn it into a family outing. With everyone coming up with us, you two, my sister and Scott, and obviously Kate, Beth, and Inara as well.” Charles explained.

“What would we do up there?” Kory wondered, as he finished wiping away the tears from his eyes.

Charles glanced at Kira with a raised brow and shrugged. “Anything we want. Relax, watch a movie, look down at the Earth, or out into space. We could lower the gravity and play some games. We could even spend some time personalizing the place some more if we wanted. The entire point is to spend some time together and get away from all of this.” He motioned to the 3D map of the town and outlying area in the middle of the room.

“Come on, mom, dad. You both need a break. This place won’t fall apart if you take one, and if it does, then you should have been delegating more in the first place.” Kira simultaneously cajoled and ribbed them.

The two stared at each other and had the type of silent conversation that only people who had been married for years could have. “Fine, just give us a few minutes to finish up here, and then we’ll be ready. Where should we meet you?”

“The lab. We’re going to have to tear Charlotte away from her work as it is.” Charles told them with a grimace.

“You really think we’re going to have a hard time convincing her to come?” Kira asked him a few minutes later when they left the system building and her parents behind.

A heavy sigh drifted past his lips as he tilted his head up and looked at the cold, cloudy sky. There would be snow coming in later. The mana in the air, and Gaia retaking control, had changed so many things about the world. The trash dumps had been fed to her pet slimes, and the ever-expanding forests had begun to reverse the damage humans had caused to her surface.

He didn’t think Kansas City had traditionally been known for getting a lot of snow. Yet the town had gotten one flurry after another, almost every day since the first snow of the season. The climates were changing. He had experienced that firsthand when they were in Nevada the other day. The vast desert had turned into patchy grassland, and it had been raining, heavily.

The locals told them that the downpour had already been going on for over a day. It was flooding the ground and revitalizing the desert. It wasn’t the first rain they had gotten since everything began either.

Shaking his head, Charles refocused his mind on her question. “I think she needs a break; I think we all do, desperately. However, I also believe that she will be unwilling to take one. Charlotte can get hyper-focused at times, and with so many projects pulling at her right now… I just know, she needs one, probably more than us or even your parents.”

“Alright, so we force her if we need to.” Kira stroked her bracelet with a smile. “My hammer can do soft instead of destructive when it needs to. I’ll just knock her out and you can heal her up once we’re in space. If it comes to that.”

Charles shook his head and laughed. “I appreciate how willing you are to physically beat my sister. It sounds like things are going great between you.”

She gave him a half-hearted grin. “Like you said, she’s been busy and so have we. Don’t get me wrong, things are fine between us, but they also haven’t really moved forward at all either. I don’t know if I would call us friends or what. I want to get to know your sister, Charles, I do, but it’s hard right now.”

“I know. I’m beginning to think that we each believe the fate of humanity rests on our shoulders or something?”

“Doesn’t it?” Kira shot back, spinning to glare at him. “I don’t even care about these people, and I feel the pressure to help them!”

“That’s what I mean! When did we become the saviors of everyone? That’s not what I signed up for, and it isn’t something I am going to be responsible for either. I am helping these people as a means to an end. These towns I create are mostly to complete the quest so I can rescue my parents.”

“What about the game, the gods, and everything else? What about that nonsense about having the strength, so you need to help others?” Kira tried again from a different angle.

“Like you said, it’s nonsense. Everyone has the ability to gain their own strength these days. The only thing that makes us special is that we have more of it at the moment than the rest. It’s not like I even know how to use my divine abilities.

“Working to save everyone has kept us so busy I haven’t been able to practice, and I know it’s been the same for Charlotte. As for the game the gods are playing, I think they’ve realized how futile it is to have an actual person as their champion. How many summons to battle, and quests of theirs have you ignored now?”

She blushed and kicked at the snow. “A few… they really started coming in after we solved the mess with the dungeons. They’re annoying, okay! We have to travel there ourselves and it’s not like their quest rewards are even all that good for most of them. I figured I’d let the other champions handle them if they had any interest in going out beyond the walls.”

“Like I said, I think the gods are figuring out how badly they thought through parts of their initial plan. So, the way I see it, they are either going to be content to simply watch each of you. Or they will do one of two things. The first is something I’m not sure they are capable of, to begin with, which is creating their own avatars. The second option is they will eventually come down with the rest and create their own temples as well. Either way, I don’t see the game of gods lasting much longer.”

In either case, people needed to take their lives into their own hands.

Inside the lab, they found Charlotte working in the lower level by herself. The students she had been teaching were long gone, and she was using the time to try and create yet another working model for the outer parts of the town barrier stones. The casting mold she had been using kept introducing new imperfections with every use.

As a result, she was determined to get the process working on the CNC machines if at all possible.

It was requiring some redesigns on her part of the device’s shape and had been giving her some difficulty. Making sure everything connected properly, while also being in an appropriate shape, was difficult.

“Having fun?” Charles asked, tapping her on the shoulder.

She twirled around, sending the rolling chair skittering away. “This stupid thing is infuriating, so no. I have a heap of wasted metal that I need either you or one of Ray’s blacksmiths to melt down so it can be used again. I don’t… I just… maybe casting and fixing the imperfections by hand is the best method after all.”

Rarely had Charles seen his sister look so defeated by a problem in the past.

“Sis, you need a break. You’ve been pushing yourself too hard. Pack this up. We’re all going up to the space station for the rest of the day.” He waited for her to move. “Come on!” He pushed her gently towards the laptop when she didn’t. “Spend some time with your husband, with me and Kira. All of this can wait until later, after your brain has had a chance to recharge a little.”

Kira helped her gather everything up, while Charles made quick work of the scrap metal, turning it back into useable blanks for the machine.

By the time they made it upstairs a few minutes later, they found Kate and Beth waiting with Myri and Silvi. All they needed to do was grab Scott and wait for Kory and Krystal to arrive, and then they could leave.

Charlotte took care of fetching her husband, and soon enough, they had everyone ready and waiting. All that was left was for Charles to open the door to the space station. A task that he accomplished with minimal fanfare after all the practice he’d been getting lately.

His increased understanding of magic and the spell itself helped with the speed and ease that he cast the spell.

Within moments, a tear in space opened and formed a doorway to the bridge of the space station.

“Have you managed to find where the dungeon is in this place yet?” Kate asked, as the doorway closed behind them.

“Nope, my guess is that the station needs to be bigger before it appears,” Charles replied with a shake of his head. “We haven’t spent much time up here just relaxing or making modifications to the place, so I’m not sure. It hasn’t changed at all since the last time you were up here.”

Myri glanced around the bridge and then tugged on Silvi’s arm. “Come on, let’s go to the windows from last time.”

Silvi glanced at Charles and Kira. “Sorry, I know I haven’t been able to come out as often with you both lately.” She said, mentally projecting her words to them for privacy.

“It’s fine. You’ve been busy spending time with Myri. Not to mention trying to teach me and Charlotte how to use our divine powers. You’ve been keeping busy even without coming with us constantly.” Charles whispered back, sure that her sensitive ears would hear him. “Go have some fun and just relax with her. No thinking about anything serious for now.”

The small silver-haired girl hesitated, a complicated expression crossing over her face. Her mismatched eyes narrowed in thought as she let herself be pulled along behind the smaller Myriam.

“I think she’s beginning to question some of what she thought she knew before. Her time spent with Myriam, and as Silvi instead of Alli, has really opened her eyes to how things really work.” Charlotte told the two of them as they left the bridge behind. “Before she was filled with a sort of naïve surety that Charles was her everything. I don’t think that’s the case anymore. The time you two have been spending apart has been good for her.”

Charles nodded reluctantly. “I know, but every time Kira and I go out, it still feels like we’re missing someone. She made our group complete. She was the innocent conscious of our team, the one that always pushed us to help whoever we came across. Even if it was only because we knew how she would feel later if we passed them by.”

“He’s right, all three of us bring something different to our party, and without her, it has been feeling off.” Kira had to agree with him. It just didn’t feel the same without her innocence by their side.

They tended to take a much darker view in her case, or cynical and uncaring in Charles’ of the world. Helping people had been more fun with her at their side. Now it was something they had to actively remind themselves to go out and do at times. Creating the new towns wasn’t all they were doing at each location, after all, that wouldn’t be enough.

Charlotte reached up and touched her brother’s cheek. She looked deep into his softly glowing golden eyes with her own glowing golden-tinged stormy green eyes.

She held her hand there for a second, searching for the right words to say, before giving up and letting it fall as her shoulders slumped.

“It’s alright sis, you know how I am. Family and those I care about are the only ones who seem like real people most of the time. It was easier when Alli was right there with us. She just made them seem more worthwhile, I guess.” He smiled half-heartedly at her.

It came with the territory of who he was, and they both knew that. He had a hard time creating emotional attachments with people, he always had.

Ahead of them, Scott had stopped to look at the trees growing in the main area and then turned to look at the greenhouse no one was tending to.

“Kira!” Kate shouted from behind them. “Mom and dad are trying to figure out what upgrades this place needs to become livable. Tell them to stop working. We came up here to relax, not do more work.”

Beth nodded her head, while the quillcat Inara chuffed in agreement, stretching out her back.

“You didn’t have to tattle on us.” Krystal protested while Kory looked away hiding a smile. He loved how silly his family could be at times, and that they were still all there to enjoy those moments.

“Fine, we won’t think about what needs to be done to the space station for now. Don’t forget though, that Gaia has plans for this place. As soon as you are finished using the planetary telescope to find groups of people and create towns, she’s going to want it moving around.”

Charles silently agreed with his future father-in-law’s words of wisdom. Sooner or later, they would need to start working on improving the station for whoever eventually lived up there. Thankfully, that was a matter that could be put off for now.