I woke up, gathering my final cleaning clothing so I was completely prepared for whenever Theo wanted to go up against his father. Then I started my long morning routine. Honestly, the fact that I didn’t need to water the plants in my first greenhouse made me drop five more bags of sand into the tool right away to upgrade the next greenhouse. I gathered the food, cut Cupcake’s wool that she magically had added to herself overnight. I then dropped the beer can and cigarette butts into the dumpster, giving myself only a moment to think they might not be here much longer. Theo would get rid of his father. I tried to keep a positive outlook on it.

I added gathering the raw meat and doing a bit of foraging toward the end of my morning routine. Once that was done, I dropped the food off in my storage unit before entering the house. I had bought all those appliances, then made all sorts of food, and then forgot them while I was doing the lawn. Since this was a game, I figured they didn’t spoil, and I was happy to see I was right.

What it taught me was I needed to upgrade the fridge, but I didn’t have any metal scraps left. And Theo would still be gone for a while. Fifteen dopamine points per scrap metal was certainly going to add up. I’d probably just have to cook some more food to make more room in the fridge.

There was electricity, but the stove needed to be fixed before it could work. It didn’t ask for much scrap metal, but it was still way more than I had. New recipes unlocked as I gathered cheese from the cheese maker.

I walked to the clipboard and flipped through the recipes. There were more creamy, cheesier soups. An added cheesy fry for comfort food. There was even the option to place some cheese and to make some dressing to make a more complex salad. That would be nice.

There was one recipe, though, that had a star on either side of it. My frown changed to awe as I saw the recipe.

*Quinn’s Favorite Recipe*

Tater Tot Casserole

0/2 ground beef

0/1 milk

0/1 mushrooms

0/3 potatoes

0/2 cheese

*When consumed by Quinn, this casserole will give an additional 20% bonus to sanity

I stared at it long and hard. There were a lot of upper food levels here, with milk and cheese. Even the ground beef. That would make it harder to make. But… but if it gave me an additional 20%, I needed to stock up on this particular comfort food.

Did Theo have a favorite comfort food? My mind instantly went to there, wondering if he, too, could have something like this to help him with the corruption.

It was decided. I needed to do some cooking, because my fridge was getting way too full. I helped empty it out by making more cheese, because now that I knew it was part of my recipe, I would need a lot of it. And it also was a great way to get rid of some milk.

I started a fire and began cooking. I made some more chicken wings because hopefully Theo would be here soon. I cooked all the food I could, making a tater tot casserole at the end when I had the cheese. Once the hour was up, I got to work planting some flowers in the front yard flower boxes. I could see small little stubbly grass beginning to grow. I remained outside because I knew Theo wouldn’t want to come in the house yet to look for me. But as the flowers were planted and the lilac bushes were trimmed, I wasn’t sure what else was keeping me out here. I wanted to finish cleaning the green room. Instead, I chopped down some trees and fixed the front porch as it was approaching noon. The beams were fixed, and I started planting flowers in the hanging boxes. I wanted to fix the screen door, but I was again faced with the problem of being out of scrap metal.

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The front porch looked a lot nicer, though. I went to the clipboard and bought some outside furniture and started to build that. I made my bench and nestled it among the lilacs with the little end table. I smiled as I saw it, and that was when I heard Theo calling for me.

I walked around the storage unit. Theo looked haggard, but not in a depressed way. More like he had worked hard all of yesterday and part of today. He held a necklace in his hand, and when he saw me, he held it up. At the end was a silver circle with a lot of twisting lines throughout it. I walked up to him and took it. When I placed it over my neck, I saw the blue glowing lines right by the greenhouse.

“You see it?” Theo asked.

“Yeah. It works.”

I didn’t realize how stressed Theo looked until his stiff shoulders relaxed. “Good. If anything happens, if talking with this ghost goes south and something horrible is unlocked, I want you to stay at my base. Since you’ll most likely wake up here at the house, this gives you an opportunity to run to my base as quickly as possible every morning.”

It was rather touching to see just how concerned he was for me. He had planned out everything.

“I’ve made a lot of chicken wings. I’ll give them to you to store in your inventory. That should help,” I said.

Theo nodded, then glanced at the woods where his dad’s ghost was. I slipped in quietly to the storage unit and grabbed all the chicken wings I could. I placed them all in my inventory before walking out with two plates. We quietly passed the plates before most of what was in my inventory was in Theo’s.

Black sludge bubbled up from the ground, and I took Theo’s elbow and eased him to one side as my cleaning clothes jumped onto me. I then placed my foot firmly down on the sludge, keeping it from inching toward Theo.

“We’ll be okay,” I said to Theo. He was more focused on the sludge I had pinned between my feet, but glanced at me when I spoke. “We are as prepared as we can be. We can never be fully prepared, but you’ve thought of a plan for in case this goes south, and I’ve made all the chicken wings I can. It’ll be scary, but we are prepared. It’ll be okay.”

Theo nodded, and the sludge between my feet sank back into the ground. Theo closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“I will follow you,” I said, staying in my cleaning clothes.

Theo nodded, then he opened his eyes. “Let’s go.”

Before we crossed into the trees, I checked the sun. It was still high in the sky. We had time. I wasn’t sure how dark these woods would get, but we had a solid six hours at least. The wolf wouldn’t be among these trees for another six and a half hours. It should be plenty of time.

We entered the forest, and it got dark fast. We remained silent as we walked forward. On this side I could hear the crickets and frogs. There were birds twittering back and forth. There was noise, yet Theo and I didn’t talk. I didn’t know what to say to him, and he looked as though his mind was far from the present. I touched the amulet around my neck, realizing the patterns and lines were the same as they were on the ground. It was like this amulet was a miniature portal.

We passed a bush with food, and I wondered why I hadn’t seen words above it when I realized I was in my cleaning clothes, not my cooking outfit. I didn’t dare change, though. I wanted to keep them away from Theo. I glanced over at Theo, to see if I could see any of those dark veins. He glanced at me at the same time.

“How’s your corruption levels? I forgot to ask.” It was strange breaking the silence, but it was also something I wanted to check.

“Low. But… still there.” Theo took off one of his gloves and showed me the faint dark vein lines. “We’ll see how it is after…”

Neither one of us said anything, and we fell into silence again. The forest was loud enough to make up for it. I glanced around, not wanting to find the ghost, but knowing this was the whole reason why we were here in the first place. The chain around my neck started to feel heavy, and the amulet was cold. I could feel it over my cleaning clothes. We kept walking, exploring this part of the forest.

One of the shadows jumped toward me, and I practically plowed Theo over to get out of the way. He gripped my arms, glancing around. “You okay? What happened?”

“The shadows. They’re moving,” I whispered as my sanity shivered. I should have brought more comfort food for myself. I was so worried about protecting Theo that I didn’t think about myself. Hopefully this wouldn’t come back to bite me.

Theo glanced around at the shadows. Some of them were shivering. I started to hear whispers and I covered my ears. I should have brought my tater tot casserole.

“This is… a good sign. I can always tell when I’m approaching a monster base.”

“Do the shadows always shiver when you’re near a monster base?” I asked.

“No, but… you know. Getting closer to an ogre cave, there’s bound to be more skeletal remains. Approaching a swamp monster will undoubtedly make an overwhelming stench. Approaching a ghost, it would make sense for the shadows to move in weird-”

Something caught Theo’s eyes, and he stopped, his head snapping in that direction. I straightened, following his gaze before I saw the tail end of a being disappear behind the trees. Everything inside me froze as everything inside Theo propelled him forward as he pulled out his chainsaw.

“Theo.” I wasn’t even sure why I said anything. This is why we were here. To stop his dad.

I suppose I was just wondering why Theo thought he could stop his dad with a chainsaw.