I woke up to the sound of rain pounding against my window and dread in my heart. They were attacking tonight. They were, according to the words in my vision, thirty percent weaker. What made me more nervous was that Theo had left last night in a considerably weaker state, too. The corruption bar must have been high, and he was not shedding any tears to get it out of his system. I wanted to ask him what his percentage was once he got here.

I got out of bed and instantly started shivering. It was fall, and it was raining. The rain was a lot colder, and I would probably have to feed the furnace some coal. Since my stamina started shivering, I rushed out to the back porch and moved the piece of wood that covered the basement stairs.

The furnace requested five coal to work today, which meant I needed to drop fifty dopamine points. I sighed, but did as requested. After all, I did have the hearty soups that I could use if I needed to chop trees all day to replace my dopamine points.

Once the furnace was taken care of, I ate one of those hearty soups that gave me a solid forty-five minutes of heat. I went through my morning routine, waiting for Theo to arrive. There was no beer can to pick up, which was nice. I fed my animals and gathered their food and got my wool from Cupcake. That was safely stored before I entered my greenhouses. I placed the glass in the second greenhouse, then dropped the scrap metal into it that Theo left behind. It leveled up, and I smiled. I would never have to worry about watering these plants in here again. It felt magnificent.

I harvested the onions and cucumbers in my newly upgraded first greenhouse. There weren’t many recipes unlocking with the cucumber, as I assumed I could chop one up and place it on a salad. Or have it count as the ‘veggie’ portion of some of my roast and veggies.

The second greenhouse unlocked spinach and bell peppers for more seeds to plant. I bought those seeds and planted them quickly before gathering more lettuce and carrots.

The final big thing for the morning was opening my third greenhouse and seeing wheat and rice ready to harvest. I smiled, gathering that up and placing it into my inventory. As expected, a lot more recipes and appliances were now unlocked. I planted more wheat and rice before walking inside to check the clipboard.

I bought the pasta maker. The bread maker seemed a bit excessive, until I saw that in the oven it would take an hour, but in the maker, it would only take fifteen minutes. I already had a wheat grinder, which was nice. I started grinding half my wheat right there in the kitchen before glancing through my recipes.

There was a recipe for bread, which seemed the easiest.

Bread

0/3 ground wheat

0/2 eggs

0/1 water

Ground wheat was the most complicated part of this recipe. A lot of my other unlocked recipes, though, called for bread, so that was probably why it was so simple.

Pasta was another easy one.

Pasta

0/2 ground wheat

0/2 eggs

Place on pasta maker

I was pretty sure the actual recipe for pasta was far more complex than placing some ground wheat and eggs in a pasta maker, but that was alright. There were a lot of options now with pasta. Mac and cheese, spaghetti, lasagna, alfredo pasta.

There was even a cheese pizza recipe now. I really needed way more wheat if I was going to try all of these.

The final recipe caught my eye. It had stars around it, and my heart lifted in excitement.

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*Theo’s Favorite Recipe*

Tomato Toast

0/1 slice of bread

0/2 tomatoes

0/2 cheese

Place in toaster oven

*When consumed by Theo, this recipe will absorb an additional 20% of corruption

I checked my cheese supply and already started making some more for when I would undoubtably need to replace it after making this. I then grabbed two packets of ground up wheat and placed that and two eggs in the bread maker. I then rushed back to the clipboard and found the toaster oven appliance and bought that. I was running out of room on my kitchen counters for these appliances, but I assumed that meant I was close to buying them all.

I was aware that Theo wasn’t here yet. I was worried about him. He didn’t have any excuse because he had a teleportation device right to my place. There was a chance he was still sleeping. I could check on him right now, considering I, too, had a way to contact him.

I left my appliances running as I walked outside. I stepped on the teleportation device and it started to glow. A map appeared in my vision, and I frowned, trying to figure out where I was supposed to go. Theo’s map was huge. There were eight little pinpricks of light showing the teleportation devices. It was a miracle he even found me.

I mentally zoomed into the map. When I did, I saw each one was labeled. I mentally chose the one labeled ‘base camp’ and felt a pull in my body. I closed my eyes halfway through, feeling nauseous at the blurring colors and melting scenery.

My eyes didn’t open again until the free-falling sensation passed and my feet landed on solid ground again. Theo was in his hammock, folding his arms, his head turned to the side as a steady drip, drip, drip landed on the ground.

I walked forward. “Theo?”

His eyes were open. He looked exhausted. He wouldn’t want to talk in this state. I held in a sigh, then glanced around. They were still inching up the tree, and I jumped into my cleaning clothes and pressed my hand against the tree. Theo made no indication that he heard or saw me. He was deep in depression, and I was worried about him.

“Don’t move, okay? I’ll be back soon.”

I figured I could place my gloves against the tree all day, or I could go home and finish that recipe.

I teleported back to my home and entered the kitchen. The bread had a few more minutes to go. I flipped through the clipboard again, checking the other recipes. My salad recipe now had many more options to place on there, like bell pepper, cucumbers, spinach, and even croutons. It seemed like one very big plate of salad could get me as much as eighty-five percent of my stamina back.

Once the bread was done, it came out with five slices. I took one slice, two tomatoes, and two things of cheese and placed it in the toaster oven. The timer above it said a half an hour. My shoulders sagged. I wanted it to be sooner than that, but I suppose I couldn’t have everything.

Instead, I used the time to forage. Before I left, I gathered some venison in my storage unit before entering wolf territory and collecting the raw meat in the traps. I then snuck over to the wolf’s lair, my heart pounding the entire time. A part of me was screaming that this was the worst idea ever, that if I got killed, then I would lose a day. Today was not a day to lose.

And yet I tiptoed over to the stone circle and placed ten venison there. I recognized the change in me. One season ago I would have been curled in a ball on the ground in terror at the thought of entering this wolf’s lair. True, I dropped the venison then quickly moved out of the vicinity, but I was proud of myself all the same.

I returned home. As soon as I broke through the trees, Killie came up to rub her back against my leg. I picked her up, realizing my heat was gone. I hurried inside, wondering how Killie managed to stay so dry.

I checked the toaster oven and saw it was done. I tried not to feel bad about the time I might have wasted, because it wasn’t a waste. I wanted the wolf far away from us tonight. Theo would try attacking them again tonight.

I picked up the tomato toast and eased it into my inventory before going to the storage unit. It was a quick switch of placing the raw meat into the inventory before gathering the last of the chicken wings.

“I’ll go see if Theo wants to spend time with us for the day,” I said to Killie. “He might need you to cheer him up.”

Killie gave my leg another rub as she purred before wandering off into the entertainment room. I walked outside again, shivering in the rain as I raced toward the teleportation device. I didn’t notice if heat was important on Theo’s side, but I guess now was as good a time as ever to find out.

I closed my eyes this time before stepping onto the transportation device. I opened them again, moving forward to Theo who was still on the hammock. This side didn’t need the heat from the soup, but other than a brief moment of relief, I quickly pushed that concern aside.

“Theo?” I asked.

He said nothing. I didn’t want to shake his shoulder, because he wasn’t asleep. He was just staring off into the distance.

“Do you want to eat?” I asked.

“No,” Theo said.

“I got a new recipe. It said it was your favorite.”

“Don’t have one,” Theo mumbled.

“Well, this is what the clipboard said it was,” I said, pulling it out of my inventory.

Theo turned, no doubt driven by curiosity alone. When he saw the tomato toast, he flinched. “Where’d you get that?”

“The clipboard had the recipe. I just followed the recipe.”

Theo stared at the plate with the bread. He stared at it long enough that I was beginning to worry. “Is it your favorite?”

“Yeah.” He slowly eased his legs off the hammock and stood up. “As a kid.” He took a bite of it and shivered. It was gone in two more bites, and Theo took a huge breath. He then leaned over, gripping his knees, before coughing so hard I was certain he would hack up a lung. My cleaning clothes leapt back on, and I was prepared.

Theo gave a final hack before spitting into the ground something wet and black. He then straightened, wiping the back of his mouth. “Yeah, uh… do you have another one of those?” he asked.

A small smile crossed my face. “Come back to the house, and I’d happily make you another one.”