At some point that morning, the latest research project in the second dungeon had been completed. This one was for the ‘Basic Gravity Technology’ tree. That would bring down the cost of that particular trap a decent amount while also making it more effective.

Nate had a few more ideas on how to implement gravity in various traps, but it was a matter of practicality and cost.

He felt like that was a good beginning for the traps in the dungeon. They had become more effective, and their energy costs had come down both times. The next project he had in mind was the one that should have the largest effect, cost-wise at least, yet. He set the Dungeon Core to research ‘Capacitor Technology’ and was given a time of ninety-six hours or four days for completion.

He supposed he could have just bundled a bunch of electronics together, but the time to complete it would have been prohibitive. He needed to choose his projects carefully.

Nate met up with Lindsay on his way back to the car. She was still acting as a driver, chauffeuring people back and forth for hours on end. It was a job that she absolutely hated and thought was mind-numbingly dull.

Angie was currently in the office doing paperwork. Both times she had been sent to the wall, her shoulder had required healing. After that, they had decided to stick her in the office instead of risking a permanent injury to her shoulder.

She and Lindsay still had a few more hours left on their shift.

Nate sat in the car for a moment, just resting his eyes and arms. He was getting a ton of practice with all three of his energy skills. He had been mainly using the basic healing to work on his own sore muscles at the moment. There was a certain amount of comfortableness he wanted to attain with the skill before he really started using it on other people.

All of the combat he had been participating in was great for the development of his energy skills. However, it was terrible for the city.

All along the wall, he could see it being reinforced, as they struggled to hold against the numbers and overall might of the beasts.

The wall that had once seemed so impressive when he first saw it now seemed anything but. It was riddled with hastily made repairs that weren’t up to the quality of the original wall. Still, it was all they could manage as the damage continued to grow.

Concrete might have been a more normal construction material for walls such as this. Unfortunately, the long curing and drying period made them ineffectual options at times like this. Not to mention, as odd as it sounded, the impacted dirt actually possessed a similar strength against impacts. When it was done properly.

That was a large reason why the construction of the wall was an ongoing project that took years. They had been trying to get it right.

At the moment, Nate wished they had done it right, while also adding a few extra layers behind it as well.

Opening his eyes, he started the SUV and carefully drove home. Once he was there, he dragged himself inside and passed out on the couch in the living room.

***

Nate had only been asleep for a few hours when his parents shook him awake.

“Time to get up, son. We need to start packing up the house. Several sections of the wall have fallen completely within the last few minutes. Not all of the wall that surrounded the city was the same height and depth if you remember, and those weaker sections were impossible to reinforce.” Niall told him while shaking his head.

Nate blinked, his sleep-addled mind not comprehending the words his dad had said.

Niall clapped his hands together, the loud noise echoing through the house and causing Nate to jump right off the couch. “Are you awake now?”

Nate glared at him. “Yeah, I’m also deaf. How much time do we have?”

“It’s impossible to say for sure, but those sections of the wall are pretty far from us.”

“Alright.” Nate ran a hand down his face, scraping the last vestiges of sleep from him as he slapped his cheeks to a rosy hue. “I’ll get started on my room, and then move on to yours and moms. Have her work on the food. Where are we going to go?”

His father shrugged, a brief look of despair coloring his face. “We haven’t figured that out just yet. Get packing. I’ll start making some calls.”

Nate ran up the stairs, passing his mother on the way. He told her he’d handle the rooms if she would gather up all of their supplies.

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Aura stepped out of his chest, as he began shoving things into the storage function of his wrist computer. It was as he was doing this that he discovered the storage function possessed the ability to create tabbed windows. It wasn’t anything truly miraculous, but it certainly made keeping things separate from each other much easier.

He created a tab for his room, another for his parent’s room, and then one for each of the rooms in the house.

As soon as he was finished in his room, with it completely empty outside of the copious amount of dust, he switched tabs and ran over to his parent’s room.

Aura was helping drag items to him, making it easier to simply put them into storage instead of walking all around the room. It was mostly a wasted effort, but she wanted to feel useful, and that was all she could do at the moment.

He had just finished storing everything upstairs when a call from George came through the crowded cell lines.

George just wanted to make sure they had a plan of sorts -which they didn’t, not really anyway- before he called the girls and their families. For the moment, he was stuck inside the city since he was the guild master for the healing guild. He would be one of the last to leave.

Nate managed to get the location of George’s house from him, ostensibly so they could grab a few items for him that he couldn’t stand to lose. Heirlooms, and pieces of memorabilia from his dead son and lost marriage. If there was time, Nate would simply pack up the entire house in the same manner they were doing theirs.

After telling him where to find the extra key, George hung up to call Angie.

Nate had kept working throughout the call and had most of the ground floor stored by the time he hung up.

An hour later, everything in the house had been stored by either him or his mother. Aura took a quick run through the house and managed to find a couple of items they had missed.

With that done, they locked the house and left for George’s place with only a single glance back at the duplex that had been their home. The roads were clogged with people trying to find some way to escape. The problem with that was that the city was still surrounded by beasts.

There would be no escaping them just yet. All they were doing was clogging the roadway for no reason.

However, it did make it easy for them to reach George’s place, as there was no traffic going in that direction.

“You realize I’m probably never going to get the rest of those herbs to upgrade my core from the McFadden’s now,” Nate said as they stopped in front of a small house only a few blocks away from the healing guild headquarters.

The house was two stories tall, but the amount of space inside was less than what they had inside their duplex. Even the basement was a cramped tiny shoebox of a space.

All that meant was that he was able to pack the place up even quicker than their own house.

His mother had discovered the limits of her own storage bracelet earlier. It could accept anything the size of a large wardrobe and smaller; she hadn’t tried anything bigger than that. However, while the storage bracelet might not have a size limit, it most definitely had a weight limit, and a hard one at that. Two hundred and fifty pounds, or a little over one hundred and thirteen kilograms. As soon as she hit that limit, no more would go in and anything that would put her over the limit would not go in either.

It was an interesting bit of information for sure, though ultimately somewhat pointless beyond knowing their limitations.

While he was inside the house, packing everything, his parents were trying to get through the busy cell lines to call different people. Before this emergency, he had never known that service providers placed different importance on certain numbers in their system, though it did make sense. People like George or other first responders needed to be able to call out on a consistent basis. Which meant their phone numbers needed to have a higher priority in the provider's system.

It was why George had been able to call him, and why his parents were having such a hard time getting any of their calls to connect.

By the time he had finished collecting everything from George’s house into a new, appropriately labeled tab in his storage, they still had yet to connect to anyone.

“Where to now? Angie’s home, or perhaps Lindsay’s, or are we going to follow the sheep and join the herd and get stuck in line?” He asked as they pulled away from the small house.

“The healing guild,” His mother replied, her eyes glued to the news streaming across her phone. “We need to speak with George and make sure he knows where his stuff all is.”

That was true. George probably hadn’t been expecting Nate to pack up his entire house for him.

Aura didn’t bother entering Nate’s chest as they parked in front of the guild and climbed out, though she had, of course, changed her appearance. Everyone had to learn about her at some point, and this was as good a time as any. The healing guild was a safe space, so she shouldn’t be at risk of being attacked.

Walking through the doors revealed an absolute madhouse of activity. People were rushing about every which way in a determined manner. They weren’t doing it carelessly either, but instead with a clear and obvious practiced efficiency.

The people parted around them as they made their way to the front desk, their presence causing minimal disruption to everyone. Aura drew a few glances, but they were all so busy that they didn’t have any more time than to catch a quick glimpse of her.

“Hi, we’re here to meet with your guild master, George Trellow,” Niall told the harried woman at the front desk.

A stack of papers sat beside her, and her fingers were verily flying across the keyboard as she entered information into one database after another.

Large bloodshot eyes that sat behind a pair of reading glasses glanced up at them after a couple of seconds. Her fingers continued to dance across the keyboard without stopping, their speed having only taken a minor hit with her attention away from the screen.

“What’s your name?”

“We’re the Holmes family. I’m Niall. This is my wife Nina, and my son Nathan, along with his beast companion Aura.”

“Nathan Holmes, yes, George did mention you might be stopping by here instead of leaving, as would be smart.” Her eyes flickered to the screen, and an annoyed click of her tongue followed as she was forced to erase part of what she had typed out incorrectly. “Follow that hallway there, then grab someone to authorize the elevator for you and take it to the top floor. His office will be at the end of the hallway up there.” She used her chin to point at the hallway she meant for them to go down, and then grabbed the phone to call George and let him know they were on their way up.

She was too busy to do anything more than that. They all were.

At least with so many people around, finding someone to authorize the elevator for use was easy.