[A]She wasn’t sure the book she had brought was worth a trade any longer.

  There were certainly books in the Pages that had a lot of words in them. Books that had meanings and knowledge she felt she had never gotten a grasp on. Even the smallest of the books that were all words could hold so much that her mind failed to take it all in.

  She felt that now as she looked at the small book Moose held in its hands.

  Once the hand at her back had stopped, she had gathered the energy in an attempt to grab the book Moose had set on the floor between its legs. The attempt had found her mostly lying on its leg instead. As she had reached for the book, she had felt the hand return and resume whatever it had been doing before.

  And just like before she had felt all motivation leave her.

  Luckily for her she had nded in such a way that the small book in Moose’s hand was clearly visible to her. That hadn’t been her pn, or really any pn, but she would take the victory for what it was. Especially as Moose slowly added more words to the book.

  There was a near constant rumble going through her at the time, Moose speaking many words, though she didn’t know if they were meant for her or just another spell that was being cast. Her position and whatever the hand was doing making those rumbles turn into even more tingles. She did her best to listen to each word that was spoken, but the words in the book were far more interesting.

  She could read some of them.

  Those words seemed to offend Moose though. It spent a long time in what seemed to be an attempt to change those words. She had seen some of the letters that were being used before but had never seen them made into full words. Which was what Moose seemed to be doing. She didn’t know what was wrong with the words the way they started, but as Moose had yet to do anything that didn’t turn out well, at least for it, she felt a need to pay attention. Or to at least try.

  She was having a very hard time keeping her eyes open.

  Between the warmth flowing into her from her spot on Moose’s leg, whatever was happening to her back, the ck of motivation and a desire to simply ‘let go’, keeping her eyes open was a serious battle all on its own. When Moose finally rose, it took her a moment to even realize she had been moved back to the soft floor. As it banished most of the light from its ir, it seemed to wait near the opening in the wall for a moment. Though what it was waiting for escaped her. As the wall was magicked back into pce, Moose returned to its nest after pcing the small book into the bnket creation.

  She debated what to do for what seemed like a long time.

  What would Moose do if she tried to take any of the books?

  She was fairly sure she could move the books she had brought without issue. Moose had not seemed to care what she did with them. As her recent experience had shaken her belief in their value, that could very well be the case. They held nothing that Moose wanted so why would it care what she did with them. It was possible that she could still trade them as a pce for Moose to make new words, there was plenty of space in both books for that, but that was much less valuable than knowledge itself. Something that Moose seemed to believe those books cked. And which she was starting to agree with. She could return them to the Pages and bring back a more valuable book, but her utter lose to Moose when it came to keeping the contents of the two books she had brought secret made her reluctant to do such things before she knew their true value.

  No, the only book that she really needed to consider was the small one Moose had been using. What would happen if she tried to move that one from where it had been pced? Did she want to risk something when the wall was closed? Was it better to wait until she could properly judge any reaction to getting close?

  It didn’t matter in the end.

  She had once again failed to notice that her body had pns of its own. Only once her eyes slid shut and refused to open again did she realize she was pressed into the warmth of the nest and the heat coming off of Moose.

  Something that she was coming to find she craved almost as much as the magic chasing away the emptiness.

  Watching Moose create the disks as closely as she could, she was determined to learn this spell as her second one. The disks were far to useful and filling to ever use the powder on its own again.

  Sleeping in the nest at the same time as Moose had once again made her body protest, but it seemed to very refreshing for her mind. It had allowed her to come to the conclusion that the small book Moose carried was far too complex for her to get any use out of, especially if she couldn’t even understand some of the books in the Pages. It was much better to watch Moose as more words were made than to try and decipher anything for herself.

  She had followed closely after that. Making sure to always keep it in sight. At least for the most part. Her own bodies needs forced her to act without being able to see Moose some of the time, she could only hope it wasn’t enough to miss something important.

  It was a good thing as well. If she had missed when Moose put some treats into its carrying bnket, she wouldn’t have been able to do the same.

  Her constant attention did seem to affect Moose though. It stood and looked at her with a few strange looks on its face for some time. She had no idea how to interpret those looks or even what might be the problem, but eventually it carried on.

  When Moose entered a room with nothing in it and magicked the wall shut, she thought she was in trouble. That feeling lessened when the wall opened again, though it rose when she didn’t recognize the tunnel she stepped into. Not only her feelings but her mind having trouble settling on the situation.

  They walked a long way as her mind swirled and her emotions went back and forth. Eventually coming to a long tunnel without any rooms. At the end of that tunnel, she no longer had to worry about the turmoil in her mind or feelings, all of it swept away by what she saw.

  ‘Maybe the rain room wasn’t a watery pce after all.’

  [B]His transtions had hit a snag.

  As he didn’t know what things said, his only choices were to copy down everything that seemed important in order to go over them elsewhere or to try and transte them on the spot. As ‘on the spot’ was often not an ideal pce for academic pursuits, he mostly chose the first option.

  Since he could copy down enough to occupy himself for a while and his goal of saving energy was best achieved in his room with the lights somewhat dimmed, he felt that had been the ideal option. With the girl now spending most of her time in the room as well, it meant there were no super bright lights flickering on and off. He didn’t know how much energy they took, but off was almost always less.

  The only downside being that he had a limited amount to work with. He had done his best to fully transte all the text he had found on the deck level, most of it either unintelligible due to missing context or not that helpful. There wasn’t much point to a safety warning about moving objects if there weren’t any moving objects. He assumed it meant vehicles, but that word didn’t really transte well, so he went off context. Could have been golf balls whizzing past for all he knew.

  They did tell him that poking around uninformed on that level was ill advised. He would need to do a lot more work before he really got to opening things up. He would need to finish looking around on this level and return to the b that he had found. He hadn’t noticed any obvious computers in that b he could work with, but unless everyone that had been here used handhelds he hadn’t managed to find yet, that was his best chance of accessing any kind of network.

  He had hoped to find a power station or a generator pnt to gauge how much he needed to worry about power. With the possibility of a leak or containment breach being high though, that would be a suicide mission. This facility was massive, there was no way it was powered by a national grid like a house would be. It would need its own generation in some form. If that was sor or water, he would never find out before he managed to leave the facility. Even if he found a battery or other energy storage, it wouldn’t be a decisive clue. It was possible the facility was powered by fuel of some kind, but the ‘secret’ nature of the level he was living on and that fact no one had shown up yet put those possibilities pretty low on the list. Constant or massive deliveries made hiding more difficult than it needed to be.

  That left nuclear options and future tech he didn’t know about. Both were incredibly dangerous to him if he went poking where he shouldn’t. If it was a fission pnt, he could only hope the automated systems were working and didn’t need his input. The only reason he didn’t consider a meltdown as the reason everyone was gone was the fact there was still power. Being the future, he was putting his money on a fusion pnt of some kind, though he figured that something external like sor or geo-thermal was also involved. That would be the best way to hide things and keep people from having to come and go all the time.

  It would also expin why no one had shown up yet. If the area only got deliveries once or twice a decade, they could be waiting a long time before their next set of visitors showed up. Assuming there wasn’t some distress call or abandonment going on. It could expin the water system as well, since that was a good source of recycled calories. It would still need inputs, but it would be able to get away with far less than simply hauling in and storing all the food and other needs. Enough less that it could be handled by once in a long while deliveries.

  He was assuming all of this off of the secret keeping and access controls though. There was every possibility that he found a secret button in the elevator that dumped him right onto main street.

  Not something he would be looking for today though.

  He had hemmed and hawed a bit when the girl had followed him everywhere after he woke up. He really didn’t have any way to distract her again, as she seemed to have left her stuffed cat somewhere else. Maybe she didn’t want him pying with it again? Or maybe she just got it stuck somewhere, who knows. She didn’t seem overly concerned about it, so he didn’t pay the situation much mind, but he now had a hard decision to make.

  He needed more to transte to keep things moving and hopefully make sure they didn’t lose power. His only choices at the moment were the deck level and the b, both of which could be dangerous if the girl got out of hand. In the end he figured it didn’t matter much. If she was going to follow him as closely as she had been, then there wasn’t much problem. He intended to return to the water pnt to transte the panel in real time. The information that it held would be the most useful at the moment, as he could compare it to the panel in the mess hall. There was every possibility that his override access meant he could get everything he needed right there in the mess hall if he knew the right buttons to press. He just needed something to compare it to.

  The girl seemed a bit troubled as they made their way to the water pnt. No doubt confused about entering a door in one hall and exiting that same door into another. He could only imagine that elevators were a mindfuck to people that had never experienced them before, and this one didn’t have any feeling of movement. No idea how that was managed, though it was the reason it had taken him time to confirm it was actually an elevator.

  Once they came upon the water pnt, the girl seemed a bit awestruck. If he had to guess this was probably the most water the poor girl had ever seen. He certainly had seen aquariums with less. He settled in near the panel while keeping a close eye on her actions and reactions. She was small enough he wasn’t worried about her getting into a tank before he could stop her, but he did still need to be aware enough to stop her. Though after a bit of staring, the girl seemed to prefer to stay near him as he brought his notebook out again.

  It made his job easier, so he didn’t compin.

  “Let’s hope I don’t run out of ink, huh? Paperwork would be really hard without something to write with.”

  As the girl just stared at him, he figured the sarcasm was lost in transtion. Or just lost.

  ‘Need to teach that girl some humor so she isn’t serious all the time.’