"Nathan," his father entered the kitchen, then looked around. "You do realize your mother and I are on vacation, right? She was planning on making breakfast for everyone."

Nathan looked at everything he had set out and the blueberry scones he was in the process of cooking, then at his father.

"We had a delivery?"

"Yes," his father responded. "Most of the stuff you'd requested came in, though the rest might not be in for another day or two. When are you returning to the game to begin more experiments?"

"After lunch," Nathan answered. "That's when we can again. Keith, if you overwhisk, you'll ruin it."

"Sorry," Keith stopped mixing. "Hello, Alan. We can take a look at everything after breakfast."

"I can finish breakfast," Alan told him. "You two can sort through the delivery. The boxes are by the front door."

Nathan and Keith set their things down, washed their hands, then went to the front and began carrying the six large boxes up to Nathan's room. As they began opening the boxes, Samantha walked in, already dressed for the day.

"What are those?" She asked.

"First part of the delivery," Nathan answered. "These are more cards."

"These are the crystal orbs," Keith told him, closing up that box and moving it to the side. "There are twenty-seven of them."

Nathan nodded and opened up another box. Several packages were inside it, packed tightly, and when he pulled them out, he found more of what he needed for the cards – knives, glue, magic pens, and such.

They also received more bullets and magic crystals, though not much of the latter.

"I thought you two could buy those from the shop?" Samantha asked.

"We can," Nathan said. "That doesn't mean we can buy a lot of them. There's a limit, and not many available."

"It's expensive to do in real life," Samantha shook her head. "That's probably thousands of dollars worth, isn't it? Do you really think your father's okay with that?"

"He's already putting together a trust fund for my son," Nathan snorted. "And it's not going to be a 'cheap' thing. Samantha, we're well-off, and you know Father likes spoiling me. He wants to support my research. If he can be considered a backer for someone who becomes a big-name in the magical world, it would help him when we make everything public. Not that he knows I'm doing that, but maybe it might bring him some more business from that side of things. He's already looking into the laws regarding the supernatural side of the world."

"Back it up," Samantha said. "Make everything public? You intend on doing that?"

"Considering the game will force it in the next decade?" Nathan asked. "Yes. Keith and I discussed it, and our goal is to make the public aware of the truth the summer after next."

"Why?" Samantha asked.

"Because," Keith answered. "It isn't quite fair to keep our research to a select community. Not enough people know about magic for our tastes. It's kept secret because that's simply how it is. Nathan wants to raise his son in a world knowing of magic, and I want to not have to hide myself just to avoid being pestered by various organizations.

"Both of us," Keith continued. "Desire to share magic with the world. The US government alone spends three hundred billion or more a year to keep it a secret while placating creatures and dealing with magical criminals. They'd probably still need to spend money to placate things, but they'd be able to vastly decrease how much they spend on keeping it a secret."

"Putting magic into the hands of mundane people," Samantha said. "Can cause problems. The government already has its hands full trying to enforce supernatural law. Just imagine if they had to enforce it on even more people. It'd be disastrous."

"Maybe," Nathan said. "While there might be some issues initially with settling things, the magical tech that Keith and I are inventing should help with that. And damn the consequences of people finding out the big, bad, scary creatures exist. If Endariv wants to stretch his wings out and fly rather than keeping cramped in a small area, then he should be allowed to."

Samantha stared at the two guys as she realized the main reason for it. Promising Endariv that he wouldn't have to hide himself anymore within the next few years would likely help in negotiations. She was sure Nathan had some other idea in mind, too.

No doubt something that benefited their son.

However, asking him would likely be akin to asking a brick wall what color the sky was.

Then, Samantha thought about who she was talking to, and what all they had said. They were hiding something.

"Nathan, what is your real goal with this?" She asked, and he gave Keith a glance. "Nathan, you two were giving several reasons for it, but the way you said it made it obvious to someone who knows you there's more to it than that."

"I want to create a home where my son is free," Nathan told her. "To do that, I need knowledge of enchanting techniques not necessarily in our world. While we're in the game with today's session, we're working on two different orbs: the first is the scrying orb we told you about. The second is a power orb, like the Black Orb's. If we create several permanent gates to other worlds, it would be far too costly. According to Master Torzin, this isn't something he's known about having been done before as a result.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

"However," Nathan continued. "The orbs would allow us to maintain those gates at a much cheaper cost. We would be able to create a hub of inter-world trade and communication. That would allow us to obtain enchanting methods of not just our world, but others."

"The problem with that," Keith added. "Is that allowing beings from other worlds onto Earth wouldn't be something that can just be kept secret. It'd come out sooner or later. As a result, we need the public to know beforehand, so that any weirdness can be explained properly."

"I can't imagine DSIS would like that," Samantha said.

"Which is why," Keith said. "I hacked the system and acquired the contact information for the Director of the Department of Magical Affairs. DSIS deals with investigations and cover-ups, though the cover-ups is technically a second agency under DMA. They're just lumped together. Anyway, the Department of Magical Affairs deals with all magical affairs."

"I've only heard about DSIS," Samantha said.

"DMA is kept pretty secret, even in the magical communities," Keith shook his head. "We wouldn't have told you about it ourselves without the current circumstances. I only found out about it because of my work for DSIS. Under them, there's the Department of Supernatural Investigative Services, the Department of Supernatural Secrecy, and the Department of Supernatural Relations. The latter is technically the 'lowest' of the three, while the first two are lumped together as just DSIS in most cases, since they work together a lot, and the last two are often working together as well. It's DSS that deals with what's needed to keep things placated, but DSR that actually deals with the negotiations and such. It's complicated, but then, it's government."

"Okay," Samantha said. "And you hacked the people you're supposed to be helping for… what? To email the boss of the bosses?"

"Yep," Nathan answered. "And we gave him the beneficial points to it and said 'damn the negative'."

"We sent it before I caught that," Keith scratched the back of his head. "We also said that we would not make the effort to lower the tribute required for Endariv unless our terms were agreed to. He's aware of our plan to recreate the Black Orb's namesake and what it could do for the department. We also mentioned plans for other things, with the hope of a contract being made soon."

"That's why you're waiting two weeks," Samantha said. "Even though you two could probably whip something up in the next day or two. You're waiting to hear back from the top boss of the department."

"Exactly," Nathan said. "Now, unless you're going to help – which I don't recommend – could you please let us finish checking things out?"

With that stated, Nathan went back to checking the boxes. Another held one hundred smaller crystal orbs, along with several boxes of clear marbles. The fourth opened box contained decks of blank playing cards, and before they could check the last two, Nathan's father called everyone down for breakfast.

"I thought your parents," Samantha said as they made their way downstairs. "Worked all the time, Nathan? It seems like they're taking a break."

"They take a two-week vacation every summer around this time," came the explanation.

Everyone ate breakfast, then Nathan, Samantha, Keith, and Katie returned to Nathan's room, where the last two boxes were opened, revealing stuffed animals, baby toys, bottles, and more.

"You had your dad get us supplies for the baby?" Samantha asked as Nathan pulled out one of the stuffed bears and set it on his bed.

"Yes," he said as he set a stuffed lion beside the bear. "The crib and car seat will hopefully arrive later."

"And the stuffed animals?" She asked as he set a stuffed hippo on the other side of the bear.

"We can start teaching him early," Nathan nodded. "Why wait until preschool?"

"Nathan," Samantha snorted as he placed a stuff tiger beside the lion. "I don't think a newborn can really learn to differentiate between animals."

"They don't know that," he set a stuffed cow beside the hippo.

As Nathan moved the stuffed wolf beside the tiger, the other three teens came to the conclusion that Nathan may have used the opportunity to obtain stuffed animals for himself.

"Is he putting the carnivores on one side of the bear and the herbivores on the other?" Katie asked Samantha.

"Looks like it," Samantha answered as Nathan put a horse beside the cow. "I always wanted to learn how to ride a horse."

"After you recover from the baby," Nathan looked at her. "I can take you riding."

"You know how to ride a horse?" She asked.

"Never sat on a horse in my life," he answered. "But we can always learn."

"Thanks," she said. "Nathan, why didn't you let me pick stuff out? You just gave your father a list and let him pick-"

"No," Nathan snorted. "I picked everything out, just gave him the specifics. And you picked stuff out, too."

"Uh, no, I didn't."

"Yes, you did," he reached into one of the boxes and pulled out several bibs. "I saw you looking at these. It was obvious you couldn't decide which one, so I got all of them."

"That's… not the same thing," she snorted as Keith and Katie laughed. "But okay, Nathan. We'll go with that."

A knock at the door drew their attention, and Keith opened it to find Luke on the other side, his face full of energy, eyes wide, Nathan's cousin already stripped to just his swim trunks.

"Nathan!" He exclaimed. "Can we go swimming? Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease?"

"Sure," Nathan said. "But first, come sit by Samantha."

Luke looked between Samantha and Katie, who were both sitting. Samantha was sitting on Nathan's bed, while Katie was seated on the floor.

"Me," Samantha said, and Luke walked over and sat beside her. "Hi, Luke. I'm one of Nathan's girlfriends."

"One of?" Luke gave her a confused look.

"He's dating Katie and me," Samantha told him as Nathan walked over and lifted up her shirt. "Nathan!"

"What?" He asked. "It's just your belly. Luke, here."

Nathan grabbed one of Luke's hands and placed it on Samantha's stomach, keeping his hand over his cousin's. A moment later, Luke's eyes widened, then he giggled.

"He's kicking!" Luke exclaimed. "Does he do this a lot?"

"Yes," Samantha answered. "He likes to kick, especially when his daddy's touching me."

"He just kicked again!" Luke giggled. "This is so cool!"

"Glad you like it," Nathan pulled his hand off of his cousin's. "Now run downstairs so I can get changed into my shorts, okay? And tell your brother to join us. He came, right?"

"Yeah!" Luke nodded, then pulled his hand away from Samantha's stomach. "Be down soon!"

Luke ran out of the room, and Nathan closed the door, then started stripping.

"With all of us in here?" Katie asked in surprise.

"I'm dating you and Samantha," Nathan said. "And Keith and I have seen each other in the showers."

Nathan finished changing into his board shorts, then pulled out his stethoscope and knelt in front of Samantha as he fixed it to his ears before he placed the round part against her stomach.

"That's cold!" She jerked at the touch a little.

"Sh," he said. "I want to hear him. And we're doing this again before Keith and I go in later."