While Myles Chase rested, the world kept moving.
Within that world, two individuals moved as if their worlds could fall apart within the next breath. Between those breaths, they worked as if tomorrow may never come.
***
The first was a man, a father, baking as if there were no tomorrow, working his hands as the screen in the background played as ambient noise as often as it was watched. Like his son, the elder Maximus Chase was working hard to push himself to new heights. He knew for his son that almost a week had passed since he left, but for him, it was only the start of the third day of the Run. Things had been intense those first few days. They’d actually closed the bakery when the first region boss, Gregor, appeared and then celebrated with one of Myles’s favorite cinnamon essence-infused apple pies after it was all said and done. By the third day, Myles was already making friends, meeting people, and making his father prouder than he had ever been.
Myles was growing into the man that Maximus and Cella always knew he could be. Not in the way that his father had wanted but in Myles’s own, unique way, and [Baker] or not, Maximus only had a few more days to show his son that pride in the only way he knew how.
Cinnamon Rolls.
By the time he was done, there would be enough cinnamon rolls to feed the entire Run.
Sending him that was all Maximus could really do for Myles without feeling like an observation tower of a parent, but he knew it would be enough as he heard Myles on the screen once more speaking to his monster.
Maximus had stolen a few peaks and seen Myles meet some of the islanders from Southern Kess. Though he had missed most of the conversation, he hadn’t missed what his son said as parting words.
“I’ll try not to.”
Damn, he missed something again.
At this rate, Maximus was going to have to buy another screen for this side of the kitchen. Taking a few moments to watch his son barter in a stall called Rick’s Rolls, the flour began to take to the air once more, and the rhythmic sounds of dough being beaten and worked were all to break the sounds of Myles Chase talking with his monster companion.
Stolen story; please report.
***
The other was neither a father, nor a Runner, but an overworked, overstressed, at-the-end-of-her-rope reporter. Trosana Leea hadn’t slept pushing through to the 36th hour now. Purple hair shed slightly onto her blouse as she downed more mana-infused coffee, slamming the empty cup back onto the table as she finished.
This wasn’t just a job anymore— this was a battle.
With caffeine coursing through her veins and heart, she rallied to defy Oblivia’s call.
She defied sleep.
Sleep was for the weak as she pushed her skills to the limit to make sure she missed nothing of the day’s sped-up events. She suppressed a slight twitch in her writing hand as she looked over her notes and began sipping her cup again as it refilled itself.
The notes read thus, and only grew more manic as the events unfolded:
* He captured a dungeon core in a bag of holding.
* Somehow summoned a portal! - Investigate
* Grew mana channels on the fly! - ???
* HE SET A DUNGEON IN HIS BARN AND TAMED IT! - HOW HAD HE RESET A DUNGEON
* BRANDED
Something had been scratched through six times, and simply had written below in the largest of all letters:
* GET THE BOOK.
In smaller scrawl, there was another set of messages— either her original line of thought before the end of the night’s events or things to look into if she ran out of things to investigate. These were much neater and easier to read:
* Investigate the party for an expose - Kingdom’s Run
* Tail (Real Name and Origin)
* Kendra (Control, Leader)
* What exactly is a Distortion Mage? Related to time magic or spatial magic?
* Lyna’s heritage
* Convince Myles to consider a Patron (Rani/Vul/The Tailed One)
* Explore Ashra’s upbringing and current status - Monster Battle Monthly (Sell to Monster Nation if juicy enough?)
* Get a new runic coffee cup with a quicker refill function.
* Invest in a high-grade perception charm or enchantment.
* Take a walk
Trosana had to keep rereading the last two, checking his hand as he slept to be sure of the mark and looking over the stills she’d taken of the barn, the miniature ocean, and the glimmering pristine dungeon core. Myles may not have known it, but the amount of work she was going to have to do now had just tippled. Trosana still had two other Runners alive in her back pocket on top of him as well.
Of course, that didn’t matter unless she could convince him to add them to his team. That might kill two birds with one stone.
No. If everything played out as she thought it would, Trosana was going to be rich enough to retire by the end of the Run.
All Myles had to do was live.
Well, live and keep doing stupid, amazing things.
***
End Book One of Apotheosis
The Seventh Run