"WHY IS IT NIGHT? We were only in the bunker for a few hours..." Jiehong asked.

  Whiskey answered, though now confusion spread to her tone as well as her face. She said, "I don't have any idea what you guys are talking about. You were in the bunker all day. Maybe it didn't feel like it to you, since you were so focused on getting the job done. But outside? Yeah. The whole day went by... which is actually why I went in search for you. I was worried you had gotten yourself hurt or killed or something. Imagine! Dying while exploring a bunker. What an inglorious end that would be to our Order!"

  Breathing in, he could hardly come to grips with the passage of time. A whole day?

  Pinging his earpiece, he asked MAC if there was any possibility of 'temporal magic' at play. He had no clue if such magic even existed, but it was worth a shot.

  Replying instantly, MAC told him, "Answer: No. Such magic is impossible for Mortal to wield. Only the gods and their emissaries can use such powerful magics."

  "So, you mean to say, us spending the whole day in the bunker was just Jie and I being too focused?"

  "That is correct."

  "Well then... shet..."

  Sitting by the fire, now blazing tall, as it had to last the whole night, Zan wanted to take first rest. Before he did, and before she shared with them how her own day went, Whiskey asked a question of something neither he nor his brother thought about: "Screen Master? MAC or Simulacrum, is it safe for that door back in the bunker to be open with a fae-network within that room? Couldn't they leave the room and attack us in the night?"

  Simulacrum answered for a change. "Although it is possible for fae to leave the limits of where they were born, it is highly unlikely they would do so. Especially, as, you never engaged them in battle, aside from the limited engagement when you destroyed the Poison Needle cluster at the door. Outside of their birthed territory, fae-constructs rapidly wither until total death. To follow you outside of the bunker and still pose a threat while attacking you, the fae-construct or network would have to be exceptionally strong. My sensors did not indicate this network was on that power scale. I still recommend extreme caution when engaging that network in the future, however."

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  "And we know previously," he said, "that we cannot always take for granted your opinion on something, Screen Master. So, let's take an extra precaution or two to make sure. Please lock all doors when we are not inside the structure."

  MAC replied: "All doors have been locked. Clarification: I am in constant monitoring mode of every unlocked and explored territory within the bunker. Should a fae attempt to navigate to outside of the bunker, I will alert you."

  "Good..." he said, half-expecting one of the Wardens to push back on his order or tone. They never did. They just followed his orders. Nothing more... he actually felt silly. Getting pushy with a fake-person, a machine-face made of light. How ridiculous he was being.

  No one else had anything to say on the matter, so he ended the issue there. "How was your day in town, Whiskey?"

  "It was good! Busy, but good. I went over and talked to the warriors-in-training first. But I got to them at a weird time, so the gist of it is I had to wait. But then I waited too long to talk to them, and -- long story short, I waited a bunch. I eventually got to speak to one of the guys who visited our camp the other night. We hammered out some details, mostly about payment. Twenty-five coppers are they will do the labor. It can be rough or refined coppers. Apparently, they don't care," she explained.

  "Do we have that amount, Jiehong?" he asked.

  "We do but it will wipe us clean of coppers. We still have plenty of local currency bonds, though. And this is on top of the requisition papers Colonel Winters gave us," his brother said.

  "Excellent. What else?" he asked, feeling suddenly very tired, moreso than he was already, and wanting to go to bed. He knew he couldn't, though. He was the grandmaster-in-training, so he had to be at every turning point. Big, small.

  "Good. So, with the labor payment recalled and settled, next will be this: I will go to town and confirm payment details. It could take a day or two after payment for the group's schedules to open. I doubt they will be around before a couple days to put in the labor. Our purchase entitles us to, and I quote, 'a fair chunk of the land surrounding the purchased territory.' Obviously, this is wide open to interpretation, but we should be sensible about how much of 'our' land we claim to till. Ostentatiously, until more people join us and opt to perform labor, everything we sow, and harvest will have to be done by us. We should keep this in mind--" He lost attention... he knew he should remain focused. But it was so hard when Whiskey was droning on and on.

  After a sum of time passed, with his attention paid, but only after an internal argument, Whiskey said, "You still with us, Zan? You looked out of it..."

  "Yeah... I'm with you. I'm tired. I got you, though. Payment is confirmed. So, you'll talk to them, get them up here. Work a modest patch of land. We might have a side-career as farmers if we get carried away. Now, what the cables?" he said, wanting to get a wide stretch of his affairs as of late so he could get to bed.

  "Okay. Yes, the 'cables' is what I wanted to talk to you about next. They might be killing people."